


Some Grand Affairs Amongst the Normality

by Ashenious



Series: You-In-Verse (DMC) [1]
Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: A little bit of violence, Alcohol, Big Snake, Blood, Body Horror, Depressive Thoughts, Drinking, Drugging, Like Literally a Big Snake, Nausea, Nightmares, Other, Reader is also a troublemaker, Reader is regular boring human, Reader likes to clean, Slow Burn, Suicide mention, THERE WAS ONLY ONE BED, Vore, Whump, gore mention
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-11
Updated: 2019-11-24
Packaged: 2020-09-24 13:50:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 77,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20359567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashenious/pseuds/Ashenious
Summary: The beginning of the 'You-In-Verse', where reader meets Dante for the first time. Roughly set somewhere between DMC1 and DMC2. Rating changed from Teen to Mature because it's probably going to get more bloody the more the story goes onActual summary:"Things had been going so normally, so typical, so boring, until one day the game changed. You really wished you were able to return your ticket to play for this new, cruel game that life had for you. Or rather, you wished to return your ticket until..."





	1. The Cryptid Secrets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is a re-write of this story I guess. I wasn't happy with the direction I was taking it, so I went back and changed a few things to kind of help me feel better about it. A good chunk is the same as before, but there is also new stuff added.

Books always held comfort in them for you, feeling the pages turn and reading the words on them was always something that was welcome. But today what was not welcome, however, were some of the quotes that were printed on the outside cover of some books.

You knew the saying of “Don’t judge a book by its cover”, a quote which you recently learned was originally “You can’t judge a book by its binding”, but sometimes the quotes and covers on the outsides of books made it hard to pick up a book without feeling judgement toward it when you were at work.

There were over 800 books that sat on the carts at the end of your shift, 800 books that someone could stumble upon the next day and pick up to read, and yet there they were, just sitting there waiting to be put back. It had already been a long day, you had been at work since noon, and then, at 8 p.m. you were about to head out and head home, only to repeat the day tomorrow when you also worked at noon.

But tomorrow could’ve been a busy day; you never knew when more people than normal would come in. You had the regulars who would come in everyday or sometimes on specific days of the week, but there were always people who’d come in you had never seen before; those were the people who you wanted to make sure you’d help them find what they needed as maybe they could be overwhelmed by the vast choices in the library.

Maybe that’s what motivated you to re-stock all the books after hours, the thought of maybe being able to help someone who came in and, since you always had to look at each book you put away, you’d know exactly where to find a book that that person was looking for.

You knew that wasn’t 100% the case though, as much as you enjoyed helping people who came into the library, the actual reason was that the library was all you had now-a-day, and all you were going to do when you got home was start the cycle of your day all over again.

Every few books that you put away, you’d read a quote on them that bothered you, the ones specifically saying things about excitement within the pages of the book they were on. You weren’t sure why, usually those were the quotes that would draw you to a book, but you couldn’t find the care you needed to write down the book title and author to read it later like you usually do.

You knew that at some point in the future, there was a good chance you’d have to re-shelf that book again, but today wasn’t a day where you wanted to start a new book, even if it did sound interesting, so you hoped that you’d come across the interesting sounding books in the near future.

Maybe it had been a week since you had lost interest in reading new things. A month maybe? It had been a long time, and you weren’t sure when it had started, but the feeling persisted. Normally, you’d be able to read a decent sized book every 2 days, a long list of them you had made while re-shelving waiting for you to pick up after you finished the one you were currently on. There was a lot of down time between helping people find books within the shelves, so you often spent your time reading something but you had been stuck on the same book for at least a week, its bookmark having not moved since the day you started it.

It was a persistent feeling, one that was terribly annoying as well, and one you wished would go away soon. But this wasn’t the first time you had felt like this, as this happened quite often actually. You had wondered what caused this feeling, what took your motivation away to do what you loved, but the thoughts that came to you about why you felt this way were less than pleasant.

They often circled back around on themselves, the thoughts focusing on how mundane everything was, how unhappy you were with what you were doing. The thoughts were as persistent and annoying as the feeling of no motivation and unhappiness, and as they stuck in your head, they often found their way to thinking about death.

It was horrible to think about death, you knew it, but sometimes your brain would find its own way there, it lingering on what you could do instead of doing the same thing over and over. You knew this wasn’t what you wanted, death or remaining in the same boring cycle, but still the cycle of horrible feelings continued, the months drawing on with no change in your routine and the horrible feeling coming and going with unpredictability.

When you had left at 3 a.m., all the books had been placed back in their homes, every single one now waiting for someone new to pick it up possibly the next day. You weren’t happy, but you were content with yourself, having wanted to quit shelving books when midnight came around, but still you persisted, wanting to change the day up a little to see what would happen.

Your thoughts still remained the same however, the circle of unhappiness and death still finding their way into your mind where they had been simmering the entire time you put books away and then as you walked home.

It was exhausting staying up so late, your body and mind exhausted from the events of the day. Nothing new had happened on your shift, and even though you stayed late to try to shake things up, you had just continued to do your same job for an extra 7 hours.

It was infuriating, knowing that nothing had changed even when you tried to make change happen, you sighing at the idea that this was going to be your routine forever as you walked your way home, the path you took being the same that you had taken every day since you started at the library.

You hoped that tomorrow would something different, the morning jobs already done ahead of schedule. There would be plenty of free time to do anything when you walked in tomorrow, a thought that gave you no hope in something new happening the next day as that free time only meant more time for you to sit and stare at the book you hadn’t touched in a week, the thoughts and feelings in your head halting you from opening it.

But, unbeknownst to you, the world wanted to take you seriously for once, your need for change something that the world felt like it could help with as it hadn’t taken you too seriously before because it never really needed to. You were only just one person amongst the rest, someone who you considered to be less than extraordinary, and yet, the world decided to grant you this one small wish for change this one time, it feeling like you were ready for the shakeup. But why in the hell was the change a completely new and bizarre looking creature staring you down just a short way from your home right now? Was the world really a world of sick humor and terrible games it wanted people to play? Apparently, it was and so as you froze in place in the middle of the alleyway, you wished you could forfeit your ticket to play whatever game you were in now.

Hesitantly flicking your eyes from the monster’s persistent eyes to different parts of its body, you slowly pieced together what you were looking at. At first you could only see its eyes staring, the darkness of night and the never lit up alley way had made it hard to see more. But as you stood frozen and in a stare down with the beast, your pupils grew and more of the monster became visible.

It was massive, probably the height of one of those enhanced trucks that speed down the road on their extra tall wheels, but length wise it was hard to see as its head lay on the ground while it stared and it’s body rounded off above it so that you were unable to see down the alley at all. You assumed it was pretty long but considering that the alley went on for quite a ways down, you were unsure just how long it could be.

But all it was doing was staring, no blinking, no moving, just…watching. And as you returned the gaze back to it, you could only hear your heart beat in your ears, your blood pressure higher than it’s probably ever been before and clouding any chance you had at catching someone before they snuck up on you. Which was absolutely the worst thought right now, but you’d definitely rather take on an alleyway thief than whatever it was you were staring at right now.

It was impossible to see any colour on the beast either, as the darkness wasn’t allowing your eyes the ability to see that detail. But once your eyes were able to see more detail, you noticed something odd sitting in the front of its mouth: a little foot sticking out.

Covering your mouth quickly, you couldn’t help but feel a small chuckle leave you at the sight. Reminding you of a cat that forgot it had its tongue out, you did your best to not laugh out more the more you stared at the creature. Maybe it was because you were so scared and disgusted, but as you failed to keep yourself from chuckling, you just let yourself laugh out loud.

It was as you were laughing that the creature retracted the foot into its mouth and gave you a new look, probably one of confusion as you couldn’t really tell from its lack of eyebrows. And as your laughing died down, you slowly wiped away a small tear in your eye as you looked over the monster again, with only a single thought coming to mind as you got another good look at it.

“Tsu…Tsuchinoko?”

“How **_DARE_** you! I’ll eat you for dessert for such disrespect!!”

“_Fuck_.”

It had been a long time since you had to run, probably since gym class your last year of high school when they wanted everyone to run a mile in under 10 minutes, but it was just as terrible feeling as you remembered. And as you threw your arm out to grab the pole on the corner to help you turn as you bolted out of the alley, you cursed yourself and your dumb knowledge of random cryptids. You swore that after today you would no longer read the random folklore books you found at work sometimes.

You knew the monster was behind you, you could hear it smash through the alley as it came after you, but you had already stared at the thing long enough, so there was no way you were going to turn around to look at it.

Rounding around the corner of the corner market, you began to follow your path to work for some reason, probably defaulting to it by habit. Running over the bridge where you saw no other people, you glanced over the guard rail lining the sides, momentarily wondering if the fat snake monster could swim.

Hearing a loud hiss from behind you, you threw your gaze forward again to watch the path you were on, deciding now wasn’t the time to find out if you could out swim a snake while in a deep river.

Throwing yourself over the railing of the bridge to gain more distance in front of the beast, you yelped as your bag caught on the decorative edge of the railing and slammed your back into the bridge.

Panic beginning to rise to levels you’ve never felt before, you threw your torso forward and slid yourself free from your bag, and as you took off again, you felt a bit sad at the idea of losing all your things. But when you looked back to where your bag hung and you saw the monster sliding over the railing toward you, that feeling quickly disappeared completely.

Thinking about where you could go, the thought of running to the other bridge that crosses the river and then trying to run back to the alleyway to go home to hide came to mind. Cursing loudly when you realized your keys were still in your bag, you tried to think of another place to go. Work? You’d definitely lose your job if you brought in a snake monster right now as it definitely not be gentle on the books. The police station? What the hell could they do, there was a 10 foot tall snake hot on your trail and they’re barely able to stop petty thieves on most days.

While deep in your thoughts, you began to feel the pain coursing through your body at all the running and jump you were doing, and cursing yourself for being lazy and never exercising, you tried to steady your breathe as you continued on, adrenaline probably the only thing keeping you going at this point.

It was as you entered the river side park did you finally enter an area full of lights, and as you landed on pavement that ran parallel to the water, you threw your head back to look at the very persistent creature.

Illuminated by the park lights, you saw the monster for all it’s glory, and it was absolutely _putrid_ looking, with its dark brown coloration and it apparently being covered in moss behind its fat center. 

Glancing for only a moment, you returned your eyes back to the park in front of you, quickly catching site of a person walking on the path toward you.

“Hey!!” you called out to the person, “Watch out, there’s a monster!!” Seeing the person unflinching at your warning, you continued on past them, your eyes falling to the side for only a second to catch sight and meet their bright blue eyes as your body moved passed them. Gulping as you kept going on the path, you considered covering your ears as you worried what was going to happen to the person

But only a few meters down from where that person was did you hear a noise you weren’t expecting, and at the sound metal sliding against metal, you tried to turn yourself around quickly to see what was happening behind you. As your head turned ahead of your body, you watched as the person who you passed slid a sword easily through the large snake monster’s face, stopping the beast in its tracks.

Stopping in place with your eyes wide and your breath continuing to come out quickly, you slowly slid your hand over to your other arm to grab some skin and pull, thinking about how you might be in a nightmare right now and it’d really be great if you could wake up. But feeling the pain from yourself, you knew this was reality.

The snake and the person stood still, supposedly in a stand off against the other. It was amazing that the snake was still alive with a sword sitting inside it’s face, but anything was possible at this point, hell, the thing could even be immortal, and you’d believe it at this point. Another terrible thought to have, but your mind was racing right now at what was happening. Pulling yourself to reality at the sound of hissing, you felt yourself step back a little from fear.

“Spaaaaaaaardaaaaaaaa…” you heard come from the snake in a low growl. Unsure of what exactly the creature was saying, you returned your foot back forward again, hoping to hear more of what may be said. Watching as a free hand from the stranger began to raise behind them, you watched as they held up one finger at you, causing you pause your movement.

“Just give me one second here.” The stranger said, their voice almost cheerful as they spoke. Completely confused, you complied and kept yourself in place.

It was only a moment later that the stranger moved, their sword being pulled freed from the monster and being thrown through its face again, this time horizontally. The snake monster hissed louder at the sudden assault, with its being retracting at the pain and its body pulling in on itself and its skin rolling as it shrunk in on itself.

“Oh man, you’re quite round, aren’t you?” The stranger said as they placed their sword over their shoulder. “And you’re bleeding quite a bit too! The park workers are going to have to clean all this up now.”

Glancing at the ground where the snake once was, you noticed the pavement was covered in a green liquid, assumingly blood. Trying to think of any animal that you’ve read about that could have green blood, you shook your head to bring yourself back to what was happening. And as your eyes went back to the back of the stranger, you heard the snake begin to move.

Expecting it to charge toward the stranger, you stumbled back a bit, surprised when the chunky creature took a sharp turn into the river, its body quickly being submerged in the water and disappearing completely. Seeing the bubbles slowly disperse within a couple of seconds, you kept your eyes on the spot where you last saw the beast.

“What a pain…” you heard suddenly from the direction of the stranger. Turning to face the person, you watched as they rubbed the back of their neck just before returning their sword to their sheath.

As the person turned around to face you, you looked over their full body under the park light. They were wearing a long red leather coat, something that looked way to heavy to be wearing this time of year, and they had white hair, something you found odd for the fact they looked not too much older than you. But when your eyes met their piercing eyes again, you froze as they stared you down. Trying to sputter out literally any words, the man interrupted you.

“What’d you do to piss off that thing?” he asked as he walked over to you. Stopping right in front of you, he glanced to the side and toward the area where the monster entered the water.

“I, uh…” you said finally after a few moments of silence. “I called it…tsuchinoko.”

“…What the hell is that?” The man asked, his eyebrow raised as he turned back to you.

“It’s uh…a really fat snake in Japanese folklore that likes to lie and drink too much.” You admitted, feeling embarrassed at having to explain the insult that landed you in this mess. Hearing a laugh rip out of the man’s throat, you couldn’t help but chuckle a bit.

“That’s amazing!” the man said between laughs, his hand resting on his chest as he continued to laugh. “No wonder it was so mad!”

“Yeah, it chased me down from over the river.” You said as you turned and pointed to the bridge you had crossed a bit ago. “I’m surprised it didn’t catch me, I’m not exactly the most fit person…”

“It must have been too fat to catch ya.” Responded the man as his laughs slowly died down. “Wish it hadn’t run away into the water, I was hoping to finish it here.” He said as he turned to face the river again.

Following his gaze to the water, you slowly stepped forward a bit, pausing suddenly as fear hit you at the idea of the monster being anywhere in the water. Hopping back 3 steps, you tried to relax yourself, your hand on your chest to try to help you breathe slower.

“You scared?” the man asked watching you jump back. Nodding at him, you kept your gaze on the river. “If it comes back, I’ll make sure to kill it. Where do you live?” he asked as he glanced at you from the corner of his eye.

“Over the river, not too far away from here.” You answered as you pointed at some faintly lit buildings just over the river. “It was sitting in an alleyway I walk through when I go home. Not exactly what I was expecting today to happen.”

“I bet.” The man chuckled. Watching as he motioned you to follow him with his hand, you paused for a moment before following him as he walked toward the bridge.

Reaching the remains of your bag near the start of the bridge, you gathered all that was left of the bag and what was inside, scooping everything into your arms and holding it all close. Relieved that everything you owned looked to be in okay shape, minus a bit of dirt on everything, you ran up the bridge to follow behind the man again.

Finally, having got your breathing under control after some walking, you raised your hand up to your neck to check your heart rate as you walked, slightly surprised it hadn’t given out from how fast it was going earlier.

After you finished counting, you looked up to the tall man in front of you, your eyes focusing on his hair and then the sword upon his back. Your mind wandered off slowly as you felt like you knew who this man was with how distinct his looks were.

“Which way now?” the man asked as he stepped off the bridge. Pointing to the alleyway that was visible from where you both stood, the man began to walk toward it, you hesitating for a second before you jogged up in front of him, you clutching your things to your chest a bit tighter.

“That… thing had a….er, it was eating…someone… in the alley when I found it,” you sputtered out to the man as he stopped at the sight of you halting right in front of him. “I’m not sure what else could be down there…”

“Oh, you didn’t mention that before,” he replied, his eyebrow raising a bit. “Don’t worry, I’m not squeamish or anything.” As the man laughed a bit, he placed his hand on your shoulder, squeezing it lightly as he stepped around you and began to walk toward the alley. You gulped, not terribly worried about how squeamish the man was, but more so worried about yourself and how you didn’t really want to see the ‘leftovers’ the snake creature left behind. Even with worry filling you, and a lump sitting in your stomach, you followed the man again.

The red coated man stopped just before the alley with his back pressed against the wall nearby, you stopping just a few feet behind him as he did this, and as he leaned his head into the alleyway to peer down it, you wondered how anything that may be in the alley could not see him and his bright head of hair.

“It’s clear.” You heard from the person before you, him slowly making his way into the alley and you stepping quickly to catch up to him, not wanting to be alone for any amount of time. “Where is it you live again? You pass down here every day?” the man asked, his head glancing back at you as he spoke.

“It’s those apartments just ahead, you can see the entrance there,” You replied as you pointed forward to your apartment. Lowering your hand, you continued “And I do. I’d have to go all the way around the block to the next street if this wasn’t here. It saves a bit of time. But now that extra time doesn’t seem so great after…what I saw.” As you finished speaking, you watched as the man in front of you began to slow down to a stop, the sight of blood splattered on the wall now easier to see as you both neared it.

“So, this is where you saw big and ugly?” Nodding your head and humming a confirmation at the man, you brought your hand up to your nose, holding it closed as you quickly passed around the halted man, trying your best to not look at the blood. Even with your best efforts, the sides of your sight allowed you to see a bit of the wall, it being covered high up and practically painted completely in a splash of bright blood. You felt your stomach flip at the minimal sight, you gulping to try to help the feeling.

You didn’t stop moving until you were out of alley, you halting just as you stepped out just before you turned around, your hand slowly releasing your nose and allowing you to breathe normally again. The stranger was no longer looking at the horrid sight, instead he was just a few paces behind you, his eyes watching you as you waited in place for him. When he got closer to you, you gulped, quickly flicking your eyes to the spot of blood before looking back to the man.

“Should…I call someone about that?” you asked, your voice low so only the approaching person could see.

“I’ll take care of it,” he replied, a small smile on his face. “You should head inside. That’s your apartment, yeah?” as the man pointed to your apartment, you turned and looked at your home for a second, before turning back and nodding at him.

“Yeah, but…aren’t they going to want to talk to a witness…?” you asked softly, a bit confused as to how this man was going to handle this situation.

“Like I said, I’ve got this!” replied the man, his hand resting lightly on your shoulder before it pressed down to turn you around, his other hand joining after you turned around as to motion you toward your apartment. You complied with the movement, your head reeling with a thousand questions, one especially pertaining to who this man was, what he was even doing out this late at night, and why he seemed so vaguely familiar to you.

As you walked to your door, your mind began to go through all the regulars you saw at work, knowing very well that he wasn’t one of them, but you talked to so many people every day that it was possible he had come into the library before, even just one time. Having no recognition of ever seeing someone so young with such white hair, you thought about someone you were talking with earlier in the week who came into work asking to see your boss to make a delivery.

You had called your boss up over the phone, telling the person who was in front of you that he would be right out. You began to make small talk with them, them telling you things about their job, and you hearing quite a few odd things that had happened to them on previous deliveries they had made in the past.

And that’s when you remembered one crazy delivery story they told you about in the short time you talked with them, it not being the first time you had heard the story from a delivery person who came into to deliver something to your boss.

“Oh, I know!!” you said suddenly, causing the man behind you to jump in surprise as you halted yourself just before your apartment door. “You’re the pizza customer I hear about sometimes! The one who never pays and runs a shady business!” Turning from your front door and facing the man, the description you had been given by at least 3 delivery drivers matched as the man had such distinct hair and such a unique wardrobe, features that each of the delivery drivers were very specific about when they described him to you.

“…Er, I guess?” The man responded, his face contorting a bit which told you he was very confused.

“Sorry, my boss orders delivery a lot, so I talk to a lot of the delivery drivers in the area. I remember a few telling me about you.” You said, face slightly red at having to explain. Hearing a chuckle from the man, you smiled a little and reached for your keys. “But the shady business part explains why you fought that fat snake and what you’re going to do once I go inside though. So, I won’t ask too many questions then.”

“Sounds good to me.” The stranger said as he gave you a thumbs up.

“Well, maybe just one…” you said, watching as the man rolled his eyes. “What…WAS that thing? It wasn’t a regular snake I’m assuming?” you asked, shuffling through your keys for your front door key.

“Well, it was…” the man said before he paused, his hand coming up to rub his chin lightly. “Listen, if you see it again, just call me.” He said finally after some seconds of silence and pulling a small card out of his front pocket.

Taking and looking at the card, the only things on there were a phone number and an address that wasn’t very far away. Nodding and putting the card in your pocket, you placed your key into the lock and unlocked your door.

“Understood.” You said as you pulled open the door slowly and grinned. “Thanks for walking me home, shady business pizza guy!”

“Dante. My name’s Dante, not…that.” Dante said, sighing a little at the nickname, a cocked smile on his face. Chuckling a little, you introduced yourself before you stepped into your place, waving at him for a second before closing the door and making sure to lock the doorknob lock and place the dead bolt in its place.

Feeling the card inside your pocket, you slowly turned yourself around and walked all the way inside, mind racing at what all had just happened. Pulling the card out slowly and feeling it in your hand, you glanced down at it as you placed all your things down inside the kitchen, feeling a bit better knowing that that card was going to be staying on your person for a long time.


	2. The Informed Decision

Getting up in the morning was always hard, considering you only ever slept between 6 and 7 hours any given night, but today you had gotten even less sleep than normal, only about 3 full hours. But you fell asleep as soon as you hit the bed last night, and slept like you were in a coma, which you’d chalk up to all the physical activity you did just before getting home, so it just felt like a normal, tired morning to you when you first opened your eyes.

Dragging yourself out of bed and over to your alarm, you momentarily fought off the urge to go back to bed and just skip today entirely because of how awful you felt. But hearing the hollering coming from the kitchen nearby, you knew someone wasn’t going to let that happen. Slapping off your alarm and yawning, you made your way into the kitchen, flicking on the lights as you entered.

“Mornin’, asshole.” You muttered at your cat, Bagels. She was screaming for food like normal, acting like you hadn’t fed her in her entire life, despite being fed twice a day, every day, since you had adopted her.

Sitting on the floor, slumping against the wall and opening the cabinet, you pulled out all the bowls and bags of food you needed for everyone and began to fill them all with the correct amounts of food.

Hearing more screaming from Bagels as she threw herself onto you, you slid her bowl toward the fridge area first, pausing as she ran over and began to inhale her breakfast. Turning yourself and seeing Feta, your other cat, and Rhubarb, your dog, sitting and waiting patiently behind you, you gently placed their food bowls down and watched as they ate.

When Bagels was done with her own food, you quickly stood up and scooped her into your arms, holding her up on your shoulder while you opened the fridge to look for something to eat. As she struggled against you to get down, you held her in place, hoping to be able to hold her a little longer so the other two could eat in peace for once.

Hearing some footsteps coming from the hall, you closed the fridge and turned, your eyes meeting your roommate’s, Alecz, as they entered the kitchen. Watching as they yawned, you greeted them.

“Morning…” they said quietly as they pulled down their coffee mug for the day and began to set up the machine. “You got home really late last night, and you were making a bunch of noise, what was up with that?”

“Er…” placing down Bagels as Feta and Rhubarb finished eating finally, you gathered up the bowls and began to rinse them out, trying to avoid getting your hands wet as you did so. “I literally ran into someone in the alley last night?”

“You don’t sound too sure about that.” Alecz said snidely. Shrugging your shoulders at them, you put the pet bowls away before pulling out your own items for breakfast and began to make up a small bowl of cereal. “Just keep it down next time, I guess. You woke me up.” They said as they poured themselves a cup of coffee. Muttering an apology, you grabbed your breakfast and went back to your room, slowly closing your door but keeping it open just enough so that all the animals could enter still.

Sitting down at your desk and turning on something to watch on the TV, your eyes caught the business card sitting in front of your clothes from yesterday that you had thrown near the TV last night. Checking your schedule for work and seeing that you weren’t supposed to work tonight, you decided it might be best to find out where exactly the address on the card was.

* * *

The building was nothing like what you had expected it to be, it looked more like a bar if anything with its double doors and dark wooden exterior. Standing and staring at it for a minute, your eyes then went down to the card you held in your hand to double check the address.

Yep, this was the place.

Sliding the card into your pocket, you let your eyes wander up to the neon sign above the door, cocking your head a little as you read the odd font.

_ Devil May Cry_.

What a particular name, and what a particular font to choose for a store’s only sign. It kind of looked like someone had just scribbled out the name really fast, and the woman on the end of the sign kind of looked like a misshapen dinosaur. Of course, you knew it was actually in the shape of a woman, but the whole design just bothered you.

“Are you just going to stand there all day, or are you going to come inside?” someone said to bring you back from your thoughts, and your eyes flew down to the store front at the sound of the sudden voice, quickly catching sight of the store’s owner as he stood leaning against the door with his eyes staring at you. When did he come outside? Or did he just walk up and you didn’t notice?

“Oh, sorry. I was…admiring the sign you have.” You said to him, walking up the few stairs toward him. “I guess I can come inside now.”

“Make yourself at home then.” Watching as Dante stepped to the side to open the door, you stepped inside slowly, eyes quickly going over the front of the store.

Facing crinkling up at the sight, you wondered how someone could work here. There was trash everywhere, even on the lights above your head, with pizza boxes and papers being the more abundant pieces of garbage you saw. Thankfully it didn’t smell like trash, but unthankfully it did smell like pizza which kind of made you want to order some since it had been a long time since you had done so.

Walking more inside, you walked past the first couch you saw and up to the steps that lead up to another platform. Hearing the door close behind you, you turned yourself around to watch Dante make his way toward you. Freezing as he walked closer, you almost jumped when he side-stepped around you, leaving you staring at the front door for a moment before you spun around to watch him sit down.

“What brings you in?” Dante asked as his feet made their way to the top of his horribly cluttered desk. “Did you see that fat ass snake again?”

“Oh, no.” you said after a moment, remembering why you were here. “I wanted to know exactly where your shop was in case I did see the fat snake.” Watching as Dante nodded, you stepped up onto the wooden floor, and catching sight of some new lights, you turned your head to see a fancy looking old jukebox and rustic looking bar in the corner that was previously hidden behind a wall. “Quite the store you have here.” You commented as you looked over all the drinks sitting behind the bar.

“Thanks, I like to make sure it feels homey.” You heard Dante say with a chuckle. Turning yourself around, your eyes caught the flight of stairs next, and as you glanced up, you wondered what could be upstairs. “So, all you came for was to see the shop then?” Turning back to face the man who was looking more and more relaxed in his seat with every second that passed, you nodded.

“Yeah, basically. I don’t work tonight so I thought this would be a good use of my time.” You explained. “I do work tomorrow though, so don’t expect to see my face then.”

“Duly noted.” The relaxed man said as he pulled out a random magazine from the piles of papers on his desk. As he buried his face inside his reading, you rolled your eyes as you saw the kind of magazine he was reading. Catching your eyes, Dante’s eyebrow raised. “What? I read them for the articles inside.”

“Suuuuuure you do, I’m sure that’s the only reason you read them.” You said, sarcasm as heavy in your voice as possible. Watching the man shrug and return to his booklet, your eyes wandered up from him and to the sword on the wall behind him. Noting that there were a couple of different looking weapons hung up on the walls, scattered throughout the whole store, your mind came back to the name of the store. “Devils, huh…”

“What’s that?” came a soft ask from Dante.

“You hunt devils then? That’s what your shady business is?” You asked as you walked up to one weapon on the wall, your attention being caught by an odd looking num-chuk weapon and a…guitar weapon?

Hearing nothing in reply from Dante, you looked over to him staring at you, freezing as your eyes caught his.

“I-I mean, that’s what your store name suggests anyway.” You sputtered out quickly. “And it makes sense since that fat snake wasn’t any kind of animal I know of, at least, not unless there’s a car sized snake species somewhere in the world I’ve never heard of, and since you were fighting it last night, then you’re the one making the devils cry then? Unless you’re the devil that cries, which would be odd but I’m not here to jud—”

“Alright, alright, slow down there.” Dante interrupted, setting down his booklet before bringing his feet down from off his desk. “You’re a persistent one, aren’t you?” Nodding at him, you felt your face flush red at your word sputtering just a second before. Hearing a chuckle from him, he continued, “And that’s quite the conclusion you came to there; you’re not wrong though. It was a demon you saw last night.”

Continuing to stare at him, you let your mind play through the events of the previous night, thinking about all that had happened with the fat snake.

“…huh.” You finally said after a few seconds. “Makes sense then.” As you stood and thought for a few more seconds, you tapped your foot lightly as well as ran your hand through your hair just before you continued. “So, then, are you…a demon?” Watching as Dante raised his eyebrow high at you, you sputtered again. “I-I mean, I don’t think a typical human can fight a demon if demons are like that fat snake, like, that thing was massive! And you just cut through its face like it was butter and stopped it in place, s-so I just assumed that you might also be…well, I guess that’d be kind of rude, cause that’d be implying you’d be as grotesque and moldy and ugly as that snake, which you’re not, but I don’t know, what DO demons all look like? Can they even be human looking? I have no id—” hearing a loud laugh come out of Dante caused you to freeze in place, feeling every part of you turn red. “Oh dear, I’m so sorry, I’m just trying to process all this!” Watching as the man raised his hand up to you indicating to stop while he laughed, you tapped your fingers on your side as you waited for him to finish laughing.

“Oh man, you’re persistent AND entertaining, I like that!” Dante finally said as his laughs died down slowly. Watching as the man wiped a small tear from his eye, you felt your fingers tap faster on your side, completely embarrassed about this whole situation. “I’m impressed you came to such a wild conclusion though. It’s also not wrong, I AM a demon. I’m an incubus specifically.” He continued as he gave a smirk and raised his eyebrow. Halting your tapping and feeling you face clear of colour, you stared at the man for a second. “Just kidding, I’m only half demon technically, that’s why I retain this beautiful face still.”

“I see…” you muttered quietly, your eyes looking over Dante’s face. “So, then, are all full demons ug—” jumping at the sound of a phone ringing, you stopped and looked at the desk that sat before Dante, confused as to how it was ringing.

“Oh, son of a bitch.” You heard Dante say just before he started sifting through the garbage pile on his desk, papers and boxes of pizza flying from his hands and falling off the desk’s edges as he searched. Hearing the sudden clear sound of ringing, you watched a phone receiver appear from the pile as Dante answered it. “Devil May Cry.”

Waiting as the man listened to the phone call patiently, you again glanced around the room, questions filling your mind about this new information of more sentient, intelligent beings in the world than you knew of. Hearing Dante thank whoever he was on the phone with in a serious tone, you turned back to face him as he stood up, waiting as he walked around his desk toward you.

“Looks like I’ve got a job to do now. So as entertaining as this is, I’ll have to kick you out for now.” He said as he placed his hand on your shoulder.

“Oh, okay.” You said as you looked at his hand.

“I’ll answer your questions later though.” Following the man to the store front, you stepped outside and down the stairs as he held the door open for you. Turning and watching the man lock the door, he turned away and grinned. “You need me to walk you home again?”

“I think I’ll be fine, thank you though.” You said as you rolled your eyes. Waving for a second, you turned yourself around and began to walk home, mind still racing with the many questions. Wondering if you should write them all down so you wouldn’t forget them, you kept repeating them in your head until you’d be able to write them down later.

* * *

It was only as you were walking home from work a few days later did you realize you had forgotten to ask Dante when you’d be able to come back to ask questions. You had been able to write down all your questions when you got home the day you visited Devil May Cry, so it wasn’t like you were going to forget any before you saw him again, but the questions were still running through your head. And as you were walking home, a heavy flashlight in your hand, you decided you would try to visit on your next day off in a few days.

Crossing over the bridge quickly, you made sure you had a tight grip on the flashlight as you power walked despite knowing that it wouldn’t do much to the giant snake demon if you saw it again, it still made you feel better to have it. You were thankful you had found it in the storage closet at your place, aware you owned one at one point in time, but unsure if you had brought it with you when you moved last.

Stepping off the bridge and about to round the corner to head to the alleyway near your place, your attention was brought to behind you at the sound a trash can lid hitting the ground nearby, its sound echoing from a close alleyway, followed by the sound of a scream. Freezing in place at the sound, you heart and mind both began to race. Hearing a call for help coming soon after you stopped, you gulped and felt your body begin to move toward the direction on its own, hand gripping the flashlight as tight as possible.

Turning the corner where you heard the previous sounds, you ran down the alley quickly, your heart beating in your ears as you made your way to the end of the alley. Emerging from the corridor, you found yourself a street over, one that was dimly lit by streetlights for only one block of apartment buildings.

Stopping at where the alley and street met, you looked around for the source of the scream, your breath coming out heavy as your eyes flew around searching. Hearing another scream from behind a nearby apartment complex, your feet began to take you toward the sound before you realized, body propelled by its own will.

As you rounded the corner of the complex, your head turned, and you froze at the sight of something large and moldy sitting about 100 feet down between the apartment and the one next to it.

Flicking your eyes around the beast, you caught sight of a person standing behind it, crying and shaking in place and unaware of you as you looked at them. They looked to be around your age, maybe a bit younger than you, but it was hard to tell from the lack of light on them, as the fat demon before them was blocking them from the streetlight.

Gulping at the sight, your ears finally heard the snake hissing, its body slowly sliding toward the person. Frozen in place, it was only a few moments later that you realized that the person was backed against a wall just next to a large graffiti covered dumpster. Looking down at your flashlight for a second, you paused for a moment just before bringing it to your chest, holding it close to you as you tried to slow your breathing down and braced yourself.

“Hey! You fat fucking churro!!” you called out loudly toward the demon. Watching as the beast frozen in place, you gulped loudly. The snake demon slowly slid its head around toward you, its eyes bright red and wide as it caught sight of you. Noting the still fresh wounds on its face, you felt your lip twitch a little at their presence. Hearing it hiss louder than before, you stepped your foot out and held out your arms to the sides. “What’re you doing? I’m right here, you moldy crescent!” You yelled as you twitched your head at it, hoping to anger it.

Watching as the demon spun around toward you, you yelped as you threw yourself back out into the street, your body filling with dread as you made your way toward the alley.

Making your way back to the bridge and toward the other side of town, you mapped out your path in your head as you continued on, your legs burning in pain as you ran. It wasn’t a guarantee that your newly formed plan was going to work, but it was the only plan you could think of right now, which basically meant it had to work or you were going to be literally eaten alive. Definitely one of the worst thoughts you’ve ever had, if not the worst, but you were also literally running from a hungry demon so it wasn’t surprising your mind would end up thinking you were going to die.

As you neared your target location, you could feel every part of your body scream in pain, your legs and lungs especially, as you had run much farther than you had the last time. Pushing yourself to keep going, you let your head glance behind you as you ran to make sure large and slimy was still following you, and sure enough the creature was still there, its face still as hungry and angry as when you insulted it back over the bridge.

Turning back around to finally catch sight of your target, you hoped that this was going to work, unsure of what you’d be able to do if it didn’t.

Jumping up the few wooden steps, your hands flew to the door handles and you yanked with your full body weight, and when the doors remained in place firmly, you felt dread fill your whole being.

_ Fuck._

Releasing the handles and falling against the near by wall, your eyes went wide as you saw the distance between you and the snake demon shrink quickly.

Hearing your heartbeat in your ears, you watched as the snake slowed down only a few feet in front of you, its hissing loud enough for you to hear along with the sound of your heart pounding quickly.

“You foolish, impertinent human!” the demon yelled at you as it slid a little closer. “You will make a fine meal for me. I was hoping to see you again, but you just came to me!” Watching as the beast slowly opened its mouth, you let out a little noise as you slide down the wall, legs finally giving out from the combination of pain and fear you felt and hand dropping the flashlight you had held onto the whole run.

Unsure of what to do, you began to think, your brain racing to find any way to postpone your worst nightmare that was sitting right in front of you. Trying to sputter out any words at all to the snake, preferably some words about begging for forgiveness, you watched as the snake threw its mouth open completely and jumped forward, and as your eyes clamped shut tightly, you let out a scream as your arms flew in front of your face.

Hearing a loud thud in front of you, you waited a second before you slowly moved your shaking arms a bit to peep through them, your eyes slowly opening to see something red in front of you. Gulping and looking up, your eyes caught the sight of a white head of hair, relief hitting you when you recognized the person in front of you.

“Dan--!”

“You must have a death wish, messing with this ugly ass again!” Dante said with his voice strained and cutting you off as he held the snake demon’s mouth open with his hands and legs. “So, if you really want to die, get crawling in there right now! If not, you need to move, now!!” Sputtering out sounds at the man, you listened and threw yourself to the side, arms doing most of the work as your legs were numb from the previous fear and pain.

Looking up at Dante as you crawled behind a bench nearby, your eyes full of fear met his, the colour of them no longer a piercing blue but a bright yellow. Watching as he turned away from you, his arms began to bend a little, his knees doing the same just before he threw one foot forward into the mouth of the demon, forcing it down onto its trachea.

The demon cried out at being unable to breathe, its body recoiling away from Dante as it released him. Tucking your head behind the bench, you watched between the bench’s back and seat as the snake shook itself out for a second before lunging at Dante.

Watching the man dodge the incoming snake with ease, his legs throwing him high into the air as the demon slammed into the doors, your mouth hung open, both in awe at the sight of how high the man jumped and from you still breathing heavily. Dante came down quickly, landing on the snake as it pulled itself from the building, the man sliding down the back of the snake gracefully.

He slid onto the ground off of the demon’s tail, the momentum of him coming down causing him to take a few steps forward, and his hand came up to grab his sword, it tightly gripping the handle as both he and the angry beast spun around to face each other.

They both stared at each other for a second, the air heavy between them as each looked the other up and down, Dante having way more body to go over than the demon snake.

It was the exact moment you blinked that they both took off, Dante throwing his sword forward before him and the large beast throwing its body to the side at the incoming attack, and as they collided, the force from the demon sent Dante back, his sword flying out of his hand and toward the street. You gasped at the sight, your eyes following the sword as it flew and then landed itself in the ground far away.

You turned back to the fight, you barely just catching Dante running around the snake, his arms coming up to grab onto the fat belly of the beast. At the touch, the snake shook, its scales rippling down its body quickly, throwing off the hands of its attacker.

Hands free in the air, Dante repeated his actions, this time gripping tightly into the scales of the snake, and as he ripped off the scales, his face almost looked shocked. His shocked face only lasted a moment before he threw the scales to the side before he attempted to repeat the assault. The snake cried out as its scales were pulled, blood flying from the wound, and as it felt the touch of the hands returning to the same wound, its scales shook violently again before it began to roll toward Dante, its body crashing down on top of the man.

You cried out to Dante, heart pounding from the fight, worried now as you couldn’t see any sign of Dante under the snake demon. It was only a second after Dante disappeared that the beast’s eyes turned to you, its pupils tight and focused at you. You gulped, clenching the back of the bench as fear crept down your back.

The pupils grew suddenly, a sight that confused you. It was only a moment later that the body of the snake began to move, it’s fat rolling over itself as the bottom of it began to raise up. There was only a small window to see between the ground and the snake, but within that space you could see a bright red colour sitting low to the ground.

The fat of the snake lowered for a second, its fat touching the ground for only a moment before the entire beast was thrown, its head and tail wiping behind its fat as it went through the sky. It landed in its side with a crash, the ground shaking at the weight of the beast, causing you to jump and knock you hands into the bench. Where the demon once lay there was Dante, hunched over and breathing hard, one knee still on the ground as he watched the snake.

His head turned to the side, catching sight of his sword quickly as the snake began to roll back onto its belly, rage filling its face at the sight of the man before him. It turned its head as well, following the line of sight Dante had, its body quickly shaking and then taking off to the nearby sword.

Seeing movement near him, Dante moved as well, his body flying forward, arms reaching ahead of him to his target.

It happened in only a second, Dante grabbed his sword, his hand tightening on the handle as he landed near it, his head flying to the impending monster that was quickly approaching, his eyes turning to the side to catch your sight before his entire being was swallowed by the monster, its mouth clamping shut around the man.

A gasp left your mouth, your hands tightening hold on the bench as you watched the man disappear again. You stared at the snake demon, eyes widen as you didn’t let your gaze leave its mouth, your breath held inside as you hoped to see something, anything, happen.

You let your breath out at the sight of a sword pushing through the demon, only for you to inhale sharply as the sword flew up and sliced through the snake, the movement of it severing the body from head, and as blood shot through the wound the area around became covered in green blood and although you were quite a distance away from the beast, you became plastered in the blood as well.

You quickly wiped your face on your sleeve, your body retching at the feeling of warmth cover you, but you turned your eyes back to where the snake demon once was, its being slowly folding down onto the ground as it collapsed under its own weight, only to see something now standing within the once enormous beast.

Looking over the being, your eyes went wide as it was not a human who stood inside the beast, instead it was another demon, one that stood proud and tall, the top of its head sporting white and a red covering over its eyes, and its body covered in what appeared to be magma with coat linings that fell from its torso to below its knees. As you saw its eyes turn to you, you froze at the sight of the yellow within them, feeling yourself stop thinking for a moment.

“Dan…te?” you heard yourself say mindlessly after a few moments of silence. Hearing the name, the demon smirked a little and stepped out of the body of the demon before glancing around the blood covered area.

“Well, this is going to be a bitch to clean up.” He said as he turned back to you, catching sight of all the blood on the bench and you. “Need a hand?” Nodding slowly, you reached up to grab his extended hand, slowly grabbing onto him and letting him pull you to your feet. Forgetting about the pain burning in your legs for a moment, you stumbled as you finally stood, falling to the side and trying to catch yourself on the bench, but being caught by an arm behind your back instead.

There was a flash of light as you tried to stabilize yourself, hands grabbing onto the bench beside you as the arm behind you held you firmly. Your eyes turned to the corpse of the snake in front of the shop, and you stared at it for a moment, brain still trying to process what all had just happened. Dante waved his hand in front of your face, bringing your eyes up to his.

“Did you run into that demon on your way home again?” he asked, slowly leading you around the bench.

“No, it was, uh…It cornered someone, so I called it a fat fucking churro and lead it to here.” You admitted, eyes slowly looking over the whole area covered in blood. Hearing a snort, you looked up at Dante who was covering his mouth with his hand, barely holding back a laugh. Feeling a small smile tugging the corner of your mouth, you looked at the snake corpse before continuing. “It was pretty mad about that, but I figured the least I could do was save that person.”

“Did you even know I was going to be coming back tonight?” Dante asked, nudging your back lightly as he led you toward his store slowly.

“Oh, no. I just kind of went ‘If he’s not there, then at least that other person is safe.’” You said as you carefully moved your legs toward the door, each aching still and making it hard to move.

“Sounds like you really did have a death wish then. Here, hold on.” Dante said as he pulled out his keys, shaking them until he reached the door key.

“I mean, not today I didn’t, a few days ago sure, but today I think I was just running on pure adrenaline.” You said as you watched him unlock the door. As you finished speaking, Dante’s head turned quickly and his eyes met yours, his more serious than they were just a few moments ago. Flushing red, you sputtered out an apology quickly.

“…I’ve got a shower in the back, it’s through the door by the bar.” Dante said after a few seconds of silence, and as he opened the door, he motioned you inside, holding out one hand to you. Taking his hand again, you placed your hand in his and let him help you inside, careful to not make too much movement in fear of pain in your legs and snake blood falling off you onto the floor. “Feel free to shower here, and when you’re done, I can answer those questions you have.”

“Thank you, I’d appreciate that.” You said as you grinned, grinning a bit more as you saw Dante smile. “I uh…do you mind if I ask to have a little bit of one of your drinks by your bar?” Hearing a chuckle from Dante, you slowly stepped up to the upper floor platform, continuing to step carefully about the floor.

“I think I can mix something up for you while you shower.” Dante replied with a chuckle. He grabbed the door handle near the bar and pulled it open, revealing the bathroom to you. “You want something bitter or something less bitter?”

“I’ll literally drink anything right now; I’d just like something to drink after seeing all that.” You answered as you stepped into the bathroom and turned on the lights, eyes glancing over to tub that was nearby. “I’ll be done quickly, assuming this all comes off easy.” Hearing the door close behind you, you slowly began to take your clothes off, cringing at the feeling of having to having to peel everything off.


	3. The Reasonable Gaze

“Hey!” Hearing the sudden voice, you jumped a bit, stopping yourself in place as you reached for the nearby towel. The door creaked open a bit just before you heard the voice continue. “I’ve got some spare clothes here, hopefully they fit?” As Dante finished speaking, you heard a bit of shuffling before the door was closed. You grabbed the towel, pulling it off its rod and began to dry off, happy that the snake gunk did come off easily; it just took a little bit of time to get all of it off completely, but you still worried you had some on you though, as you still felt kind of gross.

As you stepped out of the tub and caught sight of the pile of clothes on the sink’s counter, you heard some noises outside the door that sounded vaguely like ice hitting metal. Excitement filled you as the thought of what drink Dante was making came to mind.

You dried yourself off, your head going through the few drinks you knew of as you did so. As you grabbed the pile of clothes, you tossed the used towel over the shower rod before beginning to pull on the new clothes.

They were a little big, the shirt being very loose on your shoulders and the shorts hanging a bit, but as you tied the draw string on the shorts, they fit just fine. Looking down at the shirt, you recognized the pizza logo on it as the one from down the street.

You turned your head toward your pile of dirty clothes, wondering what to do with them as they just lay in a pile of snake blood. Sighing, you slowly picked them up into one hand, using your other hand to turn on the bathroom fan and then opening door.

As you stepped out of the humid room, your eyes caught sight of Dante behind the bar who was mixing up some sort of drink. Watching as he smiled at you as he poured a few shots, you felt your lip twitch a bit just before you looked for a trash can nearby. Spotting a few of them around the room, you walked over to the one that was the least full, or rather, the only one that wasn’t overflowing with garbage, tipping off the lid of it with your foot before slamming your dirty clothes into the bin. Replacing the lid on top, you heard a chuckle behind you.

“Not even going to try to get that blood out?” Dante said as he leaned himself on the bar.

“Nope!” You said as you walked over the bar and sat down on one of the stools. “It would be way too much work to try to get all that out, I’ll just grab a new work vest from work. Not…sure how I’ll explain what happened to it to my boss.”

“Just say there was a hunting accident, or something.” Dante suggested as he slid a shot glass toward you, one that was a pleasant light lime colour.

“Do I look like the kind of person who goes hunting?” You replied, voice flat as you spoke. Picking up the shot glass, you lifted it a bit and tried to catch a waft of the smell to guess what was in it. Having never smelt something like it before, you felt a tinge of worry hit you. “What…in the world is this?”

“A surprise!” Dante grinned as he held up his glass. Mirroring him and meeting his glass in the air for cheers, you both tapped down your glasses on the wooden bar before pulling them up to shoot them.

It would only take this one mix drink for you to realize that Dante would be the worst bar mate on the entire planet.

It took everything you had to not spit out the drink, as when you shot it, the small bit that landed on the back of your tongue made you throw yourself forward, free hand coming up to cover your mouth at the taste, and your hand holding the shot glass couldn’t help but knock over the glass as you slammed down on the table top a few times.

Swallowing as fast as possible, you felt the burn all through the back of your throat, with the little bit of tongue that was unfortunate enough to get a taste feeling the burn too, and you felt the drink heat up your entire body as it made its way to your stomach, leaving a rather unpleasant after taste in its absence as well when the burn finally edged away. Feeling the heat settle deep in your stomach, you started counting in your head to distract you from the rolling your insides were doing.

“What the actual _fuck_ did you just give me?” you exclaimed when you finally felt like you were clear from expunging everything from the inside of your body. Tears sitting on the edges of your eyes, you looked up at Dante, who was leaning on the bar watching you, lips turned up in a cocky smile.

“Oh, nothing that bad! You said you’d drink anything, so I made anything.” The man said as he stood up tall again. “Want another one?” Watching as he poured another 2 shots into 2 new glasses, you felt your stomach turn at the sight of the horrid liquid.

Holding your hand up to him to indicate you’ll be passing on whatever monster creation he made, you watched as he preceded to shrug and down both shots, your eyes widening a little when he grabbed the second shot glass and shot it like the drink in it didn’t taste like how a dumpster smells.

“Geez, you trying to forget something there?” you said as Dante set down the glass.

“Nah, it just takes quite a bit more alcohol to hit me than most people.” He replied, hands slowly grabbing all the glasses and setting them within in each other in a neat stack by the wall.

“Oh, is that cause you’re part demon?” you asked, slowly kicking your feet. Getting a nod and verbal confirmation from Dante who was making his way out from behind the bar, you smiled a bit. “So, there are downsides to being a demon too, huh? From all I’ve seen, it’s only been positives, like being super strong and that cool transformation thing you did earlier.” You said as Dante sat himself down on the couch near the bar, feet quickly coming up to rest on the table before one crossed over the other.

“Cool transformation, huh?” He chuckled a bit, arms coming up to rest on the back of the sofa. “Yeah, there’s downsides too. Like I’ll have to drink three times as much liquor before I feel anything, or how I’m almost constantly hunted down for being the son of a pretty famous demon.”

“Whoa, really?” As you hoped down from the bar stool, you looked around the room for a new seat, deciding upon Dante’s desk chair as a good seat. Grabbing it and spinning it around once, you slowly lifted it up, huffing as you did so, and carried it over the table where Dante had his feet. “So, are you famous then?”

“You could say that?” Dante said, scratching under his jaw with one finger, one eyebrow up as he looked at you. “You ever hear the legend of Sparda?” Thinking for a second, you shock your head lightly.

“It sounds familiar, but I don’t think so? Wasn’t that the name the fat demon called you that one time?” you asked, your body feeling warm slowly as you felt the edges of your head begin to be affected by the alcohol. “Shit, Dante, how strong was that drink you gave me?” Dante snickered as he ignored your second question.

“Yeah, it did. But I’ll spare you the boring details, especially since there’s a lot of mystery around Sparda, but he was a pretty powerful demon back in the day. At some point he settled down, got hitched, had some kids, and then disappeared basically.” Watching Dante as he spoke, you found your eyes focused on his mouth as he spoke, almost mesmerized by the story he was telling. Hearing a snapping sound suddenly, your attention was brought back to Dante’s eyes, quickly going between them and his hand that he was now snapping at you. “Earth to lightweight, you good?”

“Oh! Yeah!” you replied, feeling your face turn red quickly at the situation. “Sorry, that drink hit me faster than I thought, kind of got lost for a second.” You admitted, tapping your fingers on your kneecaps as you spoke. Pulling your gaze down to your hands, you tapped for a few moments before looking back at Dante, catching his eyes on you and almost causing you to jump.

“You still have questions to ask about demons?” he asked, his gaze focused on you as he spoke.

“Oh, yes! I wrote them down too!” Jumping up from your spot, you ran into the bath and looked at your bag, still completely covered in snake blood. Peeling open the top and carefully fishing around inside for the paper, you grabbed it and shook it off as you pulled it out, thankful that it didn’t actually have any gunk on it. You closed your bag again, quickly rinsing the spots of snake blood off your hand before drying it and returning to the main room.

“How many did you write down?” Dante asked, surprised to see the paper you held.

“O-Only a few.” You lied as you sat down, shuffling a bit in your seat to get comfortable. “Okay, you ready?” you asked. Seeing Dante smile and nod, you started at the top and began with the first question you had come up with.

With each question you asked, Dante made sure to answer each in detail, making sure to take his time in answering each one, even the ones you weren’t sure he would have a complete answer for.

Every few questions, Dante would suggest doing another shot, or a half shot as the night went on and more and more drinks were consumed, promising each time that he wouldn’t make the same drink he made before.

Keeping his promise, he gave you many different drinks, some of them being pretty decent and not making you want to fall over from the taste, but a few were pretty bad, causing your body to recoil a bit as you took them down. And each time you’d get a horrible one, Dante would offer you a club soda as a chaser, which helped tremendously with washing the taste and feeling down.

Time went past you without you knowing, the drinks kept getting poured and you learned more than you expected to, your mind creating more questions the more Dante answered. With each drink you took, the harder you found it to focus on the words that Dante was saying as the night went on, you sometimes just focusing on him as a being.

For most of evening you found yourself in the chair sat across from him, your feet often crossed under you or sitting on top of the table just before you. But at some point you found yourself sitting next to Dante, your body turned to face him as he spoke on, your legs crossed under you as you leaned back against the arm of the couch.

Dante spent most of the night sitting in the same position, his arms thrown back over the top of the couch and his legs sitting on top of the coffee table in front of him, often one crossed over the other. As you watched his mouth move and words come from him, you tried your best to pay complete attention to what he was saying, finding it hard to do so with the effects of alcohol making your attention terrible and senses far more dull than you wanted them to be.

You would often nod at him, trying your best to indicate that you were still in fact listening to him, unaware of what exactly he was saying sometimes. When he suggested to you that you stick to only half shots, you agreed on the terms that it was getting late, completely unaware than the man knew you were spacing out, your spaced out gaze being obvious to him when he would turn to speak to you.

The number of questions you asked seemed innumerable, and you would sometimes pause to write down a new one the times you were able to keep your attention on his words. It had seemed like the horrible evening behind you was years away with how long it seemed like you and Dante talked, the questions you kept asking that kept him talking took the grasp of time you held and hid it from you, something you were grateful for.

It was only when the sun began to peak through the window behind where Dante sat currently did you realize just how long you had been there, your head flying around to a nearby clock to see that 6 o’clock was right around the corner. Cursing loudly, you turned back to Dante.

“Huh, morning already?” He said, yawning shortly after as he looked out the window behind him.

“I guess I’m spending today sobering up.” You said, still feeling the fuzziness of alcohol affecting your senses. “Shit, but I’m supposed to work tonight! And I’m not anywhere near sober enough to go in!” Running your hands through your hair and resting your elbows on your knees, you felt your leg begin to bounce as anxiety hit you.

“Hey, don’t worry, I’ll go and explain to them what happened to you.” Dante said, slowly raising to his feet and stretching his arms out above his head. Sitting up in your seat slowly, you looked up at the tall man, leg still bouncing as your hands remained out in front of you just hanging in the air. “You probably need to get some sleep anyway; you’ve had quite a few drinks.”

You looked over to the pile of glasses on the bar, not having bothered to look over there since your first shot, and saw Dante was right; you had had more shots than you’ve ever had in one sitting before during the evening. It wasn’t surprising that you were still feeling drunk, but it was surprising you weren’t tired yet.

“No, not yet. I’m not feeling tired yet anyway, and I should explain to my boss in person what’s going on.” You said, slowly standing up and also stretching, feeling your elbows pop as you did so. Shaking out your arms a little, you followed Dante, who surprisingly didn’t protest against you not wanting to sleep.

“Where do you work again?” he asked as he held open the door for you. You stepped outside, telling him where you work and then rambling on about how long you had been working there before going on to tell him about all the people you worked with, the alcohol still in your system causing you to ramble on more than typical. Dante followed behind you, listening intently as you continued on with your spiel, giving occasional verbal input that he was still listening as you both walked on.

Soon you finished talking about everyone at work, your body following the path to where you worked on instinct as you walked in silence and watched all the early morning people beginning their days. It was a sight you didn’t ever see, as you’d usually be asleep for a little bit longer before waking up to begin your own day.

As you walked in silence, your mind began to replay all the questions and answers you had received during the evening before, slowly letting you go over each of them in order of asking them. One of them, the one you asked about demons living among the world, had given you the most surprising answer, as Dante had explained that demons could look like almost anything, even just a typical person.

The answer had gotten you to think about everyone you interacted with every day, the people whom you met at work daily, co-workers you had known forever, even old friends of yours, and how literally anyone could be a demon and you’d have no idea of their existence until now.

It was an eye opening surprise, but one you welcomed, as you had never been hurt or had any atypical trouble with anyone before, so if anyone you had met before was a demon, there was no reason to be upset about it because they had never caused harm to you, nor harm to anyone you knew.

But there were sure to be demons that would hurt people, hell, you caught one in the act just last night, and it was surprisingly you had never heard about demons with all that was happening in the world right now. Maybe you just hadn’t been paying attention, or maybe it was those cases of completely unsolvable crimes you heard about, but it was almost shocking that knowledge of demons wasn’t more common.

But there was no guarantee that it was demons who were causing crimes where a perpetrator couldn’t be found afterwards, it was just as likely that a human could’ve decided to hurt someone else for their own reason. There was no telling how many humans and demons were in the world, so there was no way to quantify how many of each were bad, so it may just come down the same number of humans and demons who were bad and decided they needed to harm others for some reason.

Your eyes catching sight of the library just down the street, and you brought yourself out of your thoughts, pointing at the building to show Dante where you’re heading to. Grabbing the door and throwing it open a little too excitedly, you took large steps inside, making sure to put your foot down loudly to let whoever was inside know that someone was coming in, with you having a little too much fun stomping about like a toddler.

“Good morning! We’re not op—” came a voice from the back, and as the voice got louder, you watched as your boss rounded the corner to the back, stopping when his eyes saw you. “Wait a second, what’s going on? Did you forget something here last night?” He asked, eyes a bit wide from confusion.

“Morning boss!” you greeted optimistically. “I need to talk to you about something. It’s nothing bad, but something I needed to bring up sooner rather than later.”

“Oh, what’s up? Does it have something to do with Dante here?” he asked, surprise hitting you as you turned around and saw Dante waving at your boss.

“Hey, how’ve you been?” Dante said, small smile on his face.

“Wait, you know each other then?” you asked, turning back around to face your boss. You walked up to the counter in the front, resting your hands on it as you leaned on the top of it. “That’ll make this way easier then!”

“Oh yeah, we go way back.” Your boss said, walking up to the opposite side of the counter and leaning on the wall near it. “So, what’s happened?”

“Well, you se—”

“You know that fat snake fucker that’s been running around here recently?” Dante said, cutting you off. You turned your head to face him, confusion filling you at his honesty about the demon snake.

“Yeah, the one that was running around claiming he was a god or something? You finally find him?” you heard your boss ask at Dante, your eyes turning back and forth between the two as they spoke.

“Yep, that one. I did catch him, but there might have been a blood bath from it, which may have ruined someone’s evening.” Dante said, pointing at you behind his other hand. “And then lightweight and I spent most of the evening drinking, trying to forget that ugly ass face.”

“Wait, are you drunk?” your boss asked at you. Flushing a bit, you nodded, really hoping you could have tried to walk away from here without him knowing how long you had been drinking for, hoping to play the whole situation off as a more light-hearted joke and mistake. Hearing a small laugh from him, you looked back at Dante, your lips pulled tight. “Well, that sounds like a horrible night!”

“It was awful! That thing was so ugly, and persistent too, it was going to eat someone near my house and I just couldn’t let that happen!” You explained, turning back to your boss. “So, I’m not going to be sober enough for my shift tonight.” Feeling a hand come down lightly on your shoulder, you looked up at your boss, a smile on his face.

“Don’t sweat it, this is a pretty special situation, so I’ll let it slide. Just don’t try to show up drunk, that’s all I ask.” He said, lifting his hand. “I’ll work the late shift tonight, it’ll be nice to see all the late night regulars again.”

“I think I can do that.” You replied, grinning a little. Your grin died down a little not long after, a new thought coming to your head. “Wait… Boss, how do you know about demons?” Waiting for a reply, you saw your boss’s eyes look toward Dante for a moment, him mouthing something you weren’t able to understand just before he looked back toward you.

“Well, uh… I’ll let you guess.” He said, face more serious than you had ever seen since you had known him. Staring at his face, you let your eyes wander over his features slowly, his sunken eyes that always made him look tired, his crooked nose that was covered in thick sun spots, and his cheeks that had only a few less sun spots than his nose.

As the moments passed, you felt your attention shift to something within your chest, that small persisting feeling that you sometimes got when meeting new people. It was duller than normal, with alcohol still being in your system and although you had sobered up a bit from the walk here, it still lingered, dulling your senses about the world around you.

It wasn’t a bad feeling, it was just a weight that sat near the center of your being, there wasn’t any heat or pain with it, just a density to it. You had always thought that it was because of anxiety, as meeting new people wasn’t something you really enjoyed, instead preferring to keep to yourself or going to work if you felt the need to socialize a bit, but sometimes the feeling persisted past the first meeting where it seemed to exist only when certain people were around.

Maybe, thinking about all the people you had met in the past, it wasn’t anxiety, but something more innate to you, something that wouldn’t have ever made sense before because of your lack of knowledge.

Wait one _fucking_ second

“Are you…a demon?” you finally asked, your voice coming out quieter than you meant it to. Seeing no change in your boss’s face, you knew the answer already, needing no confirmation from him. Pausing for a second, you felt your lip twitch a bit, a small chuckle leaving you. “And here I thought there wasn’t anything to you past finding new ways to get people to come visit the library.” Hearing a laugh from your boss, you smiled a cheeky grin.

“Now, don’t get me wrong, I do live for spreading my love of reading, but of course that’s not all I have to me!” he said, a smile painting his face too.

“Could’ve fooled me!” you said, pulling your hands off of the counter. “With how excited you always are for work, I would’ve put money on you having been born just to help people who stumble in here.” You paused for a second, thinking about some of your coworkers that gave you that dense feeling as well. “Does that mean that there are others who work here who’re demons too?”

“Yes, there are, but it’s not my place to tell that, so I’ll let them do that.” Your boss said, him pulling himself off of the wall and turning to face Dante. “You may want to help this one get home, if you two were drinking all night, I have a feeling a wicked hangover is coming.”

“Oh yeah, that’s the next stop after this.” Dante replied, slowly stepping up behind you and placing his hand on your shoulder. “You ready to head out?”

“I definitely don’t want to go home yet, my roommate’s going to yell at me as soon as I get in the door!” you groaned, turning and facing the tall man. “How about this? I come back to the shop with you, have a few more drinks, and clean up the place? If I’m drunk enough, then I’ll have no memory of how awful that’ll be! And I can’t have a hangover if I stay drunk too, it’s the perfect plan!” you suggested, a grin on your face as you began to walk to the door, turning around for a second to wave at your boss.

“I think you’re just trying to get more free drinks out of me.” Dante said, grabbing the door before you and holding it open. You stepped outside, you spinning in place for a moment before walking toward the shop. “Hey, lightweight, your place is the other way!”

“I didn’t bring my bag with me! I need that before I can go home!” You said, grinning almost from ear to ear as a groan left Dante. Turning your head a bit to catch a glimpse of the man following you, you returned your gaze to your front, the smile not leaving your face as you watched all the people around going about their day, some of them noticing you and smiling a bit as they waved at you walking down the street. “You’ve got more trash bags somewhere in that store, right?” you asked back toward Dante.

“I think so?” he replied, voice a little uncertain.

“You’d better, cause I’m not leaving ‘til that whole place is spotless!”

“Why?” catching up to you, you turned and looked at Dante, a confused look on his face.

“As a thank you.” You answered. “You know, cause, well… you saved me. O-Or I guess, rather, you helped me not get eaten by that demon. That definitely wasn’t how I wanted to go.” Watching as Dante raised an eyebrow at you, you felt yourself flush a bit. “I-I mean, it’s not like I was planning on going, it’s just an expression and I wasn’t thinking about it anymore, at least not since that night with fat and ugly, cause I’ve been fine since then it’s just th—” hearing a laugh from Dante, you quickly felt your entire face turn red as you returned your line of sight forward. “Oh dear, this is terrible, how much more of a walk do we have?”

“Just a little farther, I think you’ll be fine though.” Dante replied, a hand coming up and pushing itself into your hair, completely messing it up. Feeling the hand leave, you felt your lips pull tight, your hands coming up to fix your hair quickly. It was only a few minutes later that you saw the shop in the distance, your mind focusing on making a plan of how to make the whole place presentable to visitors. You knew it was going to take a long time, but you were fine with that, cause that meant you’d be staying at Devil May Cry all day.


	4. The Guided Mark

25 trash bags.

It took 25 trash bags full of garbage that had to be hauled outside before the store was free of everything. It took 25 trash bags completely full of empty pizza boxes, papers of unknown origin, and magazines that were so full of outdated information, but the floor was finally visible, the shelves were neatly stacked with necessary stuff, and Dante’s desk now only homed his phone, nothing else. Anything else he needed was placed in a drawer somewhere, or on the nearby shelf that hid below the stairs.

It had taken you longer than you thought it would to clean everything, the sun now completely below the horizon and the temperature outside had dropped down to almost freezing, but it was truly a sight to behold. You, however, didn’t get to celebrate too much as about an hour before you had finished cleaning, your head had started to throb, your hangover coming on with anger as you finally sobered up completely.

Instead of celebrating, you laid on the couch, your head resting flat on the cushion while your feet were up in the air being supported by the arm on the other end of the couch, your eyes watching as Dante walked around the shop while looking over each and everything thing on display.

“I didn’t even know I had half of this shit!” he said, picking up a book from the shelf behind the stairs and flipping through it. “Oh, this is from the library…?”

“You’d better put back in its place when you’re done with it.” You muttered, slowly feeling your eyes begin to close despite your best attempts to keep them open. Dante turned around, chuckling a bit at the sight of you laid out pathetically on the couch.

“Hey, you falling asleep there?” He asked, placing the book back on the shelf before making his way over to you, his hand resting on your head gently as he knelt down. “You should probably go home you know. You said you had a roommate, right? Aren’t they wondering where you are?”

“Prob’bly…” you muttered just before you yawned, enjoying the feeling of Dante’s hand on your head as your cheek pressed into the cool cushion below you. “But they’ll just yell at me if I come home now, which is not what I want to deal with right now.”

“I mean, you did disappear for a whole day, I’d be surprised if they didn’t yell at you.” Dante said, slowly sliding his hand off of your head and to your shoulder. You let out a displeased noise at the change of place, your eyes peeping open for a second to see the man before you. “Come on, let’s get you home before you completely fall asleep.” Yawning again, you carefully peeled yourself off of the couch, grabbing onto the back of it for support as you wobbled a bit.

“If I come back in a week, and you’ve gone and ruined this store, I’m going to be mad at you…” you said quietly as you slowly lifted yourself to your feet. Watching as Dante went and retrieved your bag, you slowly made your way to the front door, leaning on the wall next to it as you waited for Dante.

“I make no promises about cleanliness,” he said, opening the door to outside and letting you go first before he stepped out as well.

“Then I’ll be back to clean up again, so you best let me in when I come over…” you muttered, dragging your feet over the pavement as you began to walk home, barely aware of anything around you besides the footsteps to your side that belonged to Dante. He chuckled, mentioning something about having a personal maid as he adjusted the bag on his shoulder while he caught up to you.

The walk home was quiet, the people on the streets slowly putting their businesses away as the day ended, the sound of the nearby river flowing over the area as only a few cars drove down the road to disrupt the peace.

The closer you got to your house, the more tired you felt, your body expended of all energy from the day’s activities and lack of rest. It was just over the bridge, when you were about to round the corner of the gas station did you realize just how exhausted you were, your legs feeling like nothing more than hollow tubes made of horrible glued together pieces of cardboard, as each step you were taking caused you to wobble a bit.

“Almost there,” you heard Dante say nearby, one of his arms coming down and catching you under your arm as you wobbled about. “Here, hold this.” Listening to him, you held out your hands as he handed you your bag, and just as confusion hit you, you felt him slide one of his hands behind your back with the other going behind your knee. It took you a second to realize what he was doing, but you didn’t have the energy to fight right now, despite how much you usually hated to be carried around.

You leaned your head against his chest, sighing at the situation as Dante carried you around the corner, him walking a bit slower than before. Your eyes fell closed, this time you couldn’t fight it as it happened, and as you felt the heat coming off of the man, you focused on his heart beat which was loud and clear to you as it helped lull you deeper into sleep. As you listened, you waited for Dante to ask for your keys as you knew you’d be home very soon.

Instead, you heard a sudden bang on wood just after Dante stopped, and you jumped a bit, surprised that Dante wasn’t just setting you free into your apartment. You heard the door open, your eyes refusing to open now and so you just listened.

It was only when you heard voices speaking, completely unsure of what exactly they were saying, did you realize that your body had already fallen asleep, your consciousness slowly fading despite you trying to fight it for just a little bit longer.

You felt nothing happen after you heard Dante kick your front door, but at some point, you ended up in your bed, the softness under you startling you from its contrast to Dante’s leather jacket. Your hand felt around the area quickly, it running over your bag and a pillow in your search for the answer to what was happening.

Another hand came down onto your own, pressing it gently into the bed before pushing it back toward your body. It lingered for a second as you moved yourself on your bed to get comfortable, only lifting itself off of your hand once you had settled.

You felt like garbage the next day, specifically like garbage that was set on fire by alcohol and left to burn itself out. Opening your eyes was the worst thing you had ever done, as your lids were heavy still and the rush of light into your eyes didn’t help the throbbing pain that was still present in your head.

Throwing off the covers of your bed, you noticed you were still wearing not your own clothes, but rather the borrowed clothes from Dante. As you stood up and stretched out every part of your body, some joints making popping sounds that were way louder than they usually were in the morning, you made sure to note that you’d need to wash and return the clothes soon.

Today wasn’t laundry day though, and you had to get through a few more days of your typical work week before you’d have a day off to do your chores. The only hope you had inside you was that you’d start feeling like a normal person again soon, because the headache you had was horrible and was definitely going to make it difficult to focus on what you needed to do today.

The first day back to typical life was awful, the headache you had remained all day, it was dull but annoying you in every way as you tried to appear like you hadn’t spent a whole day drinking and getting no sleep. The worst part of the day was feeding the animals, as Bagels’ yelling seemed to somehow be more annoying than normal, it causing your head to throb with each screech she let out until you fed her.

What was different, and very welcome, was Alecz not saying anything about the previous night. You had worried that they would be angry that you had been carried in by someone random that late at night, but as they poured themselves a cup of coffee and read a book they were holding, one you hadn’t seen them pick up before, you were glad they let you be. Especially since you were absolutely sure they were going to yell at you for being gone for a whole day without saying anything. You two weren’t close, but it wasn’t very like you to go out, let alone for a whole day, so it would only be normal to worry at least a little bit about someone if that happened suddenly.

Going to work was terrible, the walk there caused you to need to bundle up and keep a hood on your head, hoping to shield your eyes from the sun light that was beating down from above. But as cars passed by and the light shined off of their hoods and mirrors directly into your eyes, you cursed who ever designed cars and how inconsiderate they were toward hungover people.

Work itself was pleasant, your boss greeting you with a quieter than normal ‘Welcome in!’ as you slowly made your way to the back, your hood still on and your face furrowed in anger. You heard your boss laugh once you were out of sight, and a small smile peaked itself on your lips, imagining how terrible you must look right now in contrast to how collected and ready you were on any other day.

You put up your jacket, sighing as you did so as you’d much rather work with the hood on through your shift than have to deal with the bright lights above. Returning to the front of the library, you walked over to your boss who was still chuckling to himself a bit. Meeting his eye, he motioned his head to behind him, your gaze turning to see a cart full of books that needed to be shelved again.

“You want that or front desk?” your boss asked. Thinking on it for a second, walking around the library and using your brain to find where everything went sounded terrible, your head hurting at the idea.

“I’d prefer to stay at the desk,” you said, slowly grabbing the near by chair and climbing onto it, your feet resting on the crate below the desk. “I don’t want to think too much today, I’ll let the computer do that for me.” Hearing another laugh from your boss, you turned and watched him walk off, him grabbing the overly full cart before pushing it from the back area.

Logging into the system and checking yourself in on the schedule, you grabbed the file of reservations that sat near you, flipping through it to see the amount of books that would need to be pulled today. You noticed how few were in the file, noting that many of them were marked off by your boss. Closing the file, you smiled, now eternally grateful that your boss understood how terrible you felt today.

Hearing the door open, your head snapped up, catching sight of someone entering the library who looked a bit lost. Placing the file back in its home, you greeted them gently, waving at them a bit to get their attention.

As the person came over, you tried your best to ignore the headache that was plaguing you, it throbbing in the back off your head as the person asked where they could find a specific book. They talked about the research they were doing for their upcoming semester of class, and as they rambled on to you, you began to pull out the small filing box that told you the call number. Shuffling through the series of organization, you pulled out a card slowly, nothing the number on it before standing up, slowly making your way around the desk and motioning for the person to follow you.

Making your way upstairs, you scouted out the isle you needed to go to, turning down it and slowly following the call numbers on the sides of the shelves until you found the one you needed. Making sure the person was still behind you, you started to head down the aisle, your hand slowly sliding over the books on the shelves while you read the call numbers of the books. Finding your target, you pulled the book down from the top shelf, turning toward the person behind you.

“Was this the only book you needed? Oh, do you need to get a library card?” you asked as you handed them the book.

“I have one, I just don’t come here a lot,” the person said as they took the book from you, slowly flipping it open and paging through it. “I was going to keep looking around though. Thank you for your help.” Smiling a bit, the person turned around and made their way to another aisle, and as you watched them round the corner, you sighed silently, your head driving you mad.

Slowly stepping out of the aisle, you made your way to the stairs, slowly padding down it as you tried to keep the least amount of light out of your eyes. Stepping onto the first floor, you turned toward the front desk, your eyes jumping up when they saw a hint of red that wasn’t there before.

“Morning!” came a cheerful voice that was wearing the red. Rolling your eyes and waving a bit, you made your way around the desk, your eyes never leaving the man who had one hand placed on the top of it as he learned over it.

“Hey, mornin’,” you replied as you slowly slid up onto your chair. Turning and setting your feet on top of the under-desk crate, you pulled your reservations file out of its place again. “What brings you in, Dante?”

“Just making sure you didn’t slip into a coma last night.” Dante said, a grin plastered on his face. “Oh, brought you this too.” Watching as Dante’s other hand came up into view behind the desk, you couldn’t help but smile at the sight of a small coffee in his hand. “Thought you might need it. Based on how much you hated some of the drinks I gave you, I got a one with a shit-load of sugar in it.”

“You’re sweet,” you said, your hand slowly grabbing onto the cup and brining it toward you. “I don’t usually drink coffee, but today is definitely an exception.” Bringing the cup up and smelling the aroma coming from it, you sighed happily before slowly taking a sip. It was amazingly sweet, tasting like it was almost exclusively creamer, but you could tell there was a touch of coffee somewhere in it.

Placing the cup on a coaster that was nearby, you turned back to Dante, you flushing a bit as you caught sight of him just watching you. Your eyes looked over his face for a second before they snapped down to file in front of you.

“D-Did you just come to see my work and me or?” you sputtered out, your hand slowly pulling one page out of the file. Dropping the paper on the desk, you quickly reached for the fallen page, only to slide your finger against a page in the file still, causing a cut to appear. Cursing at the pain, your dropped the file off to the side dramatically as your brought your hand up to mouth.

“Yeah, basically,” replied the man, a small chuckle leaving him as he watched you place your finger in your mouth. Opening the drawer near you, you couldn’t help but smile a bit as you pulled out the first aid kit, placed it down in front of you and flipped open the lid. Crinkling your face at the lack of band aids inside, you remembered that you used the last one the week before and forgot to tell your boss about it. “I did have something to ask though.”

“What’s up?” sliding the first aid kid back into its place, you slowly closed the drawer, your cut finger hanging in front of you as you looked around for a napkin.

“What day should I expect you?”

“…huh?” pausing your search, your eyes turned back to Dante, your eyebrow raised a bit at the question.

“Last night, you said something along the lines of coming back in a week to clean,” Dante explained as he slowly lifted himself off of the desk. Furrowing your brow, you let your eyes fall down to the side for a second, your mind running through the events of the previous evening. It was a bit hard to remember, you were so tired that your memory was a bit patchy in places.

“Did I?” you asked turning back to face Dante. Seeing the nod from the man, you hummed lightly. “I don’t remember saying that…I don’t even remember getting home…” you admitted.

“Oh, that’s cause you fell asleep while I was carrying you.”

“While you were what?” Feeling your entire face turn red, you stared at the man who had a smirk on his face for a moment. Trying to sputter something out at him, you quickly turned your eyes away and tried to find a napkin again as you remembered your finger was still bleeding a bit

“Yeah, it was no big deal though. Your roommate showed me in, and I did enjoy your pets showing me where your room was. I’m surprised you still need stuff animals in your bed at you’re a—”

“Oh, look at the time! I’ve got so much work to do!!” you said quickly and a little too loudly. Pulling the file up and the paper you dropped before from the table, you felt your entire being turn red, and your face furrowed up as you buried your head behind the open file. Hearing a small laugh on the other side of the desk, you peaked over the paper for a second, your eyes catching sight of Dante trying to contain a louder laugh. “I-I’ll be there Thursday, how about that?” you whispered, refusing to move the file down more.

“Sounds good, I’ll try not to destroy the place in the meantime,” Dante replied, his laughing slowly dying down as he caught sight of an older woman glaring at him nearby. Staring at the woman for a second, his eyes turned back to you, a small still on his face. “I’ll see you then.”

“Yeah, Thursday…” you replied, your one hand opening up for a second to wave at the man. Watching the man turn and give you a backhanded wave, you waited for him to exit the building before you laid your head and elbows down on the desk, the file before you now becoming a cover as you placed it on your head to try to hide from the world.

Hearing some snickering nearby, you shot up and slammed down the file onto the desk, your eyes turning and glaring at the figure of your boss behind a bookshelf, his hand covering his mouth as he tried to contain a deep laughter that he wanted to release.

Glaring harder at the sight, you mouthed at him ‘I will end you’, your finger coming up to try to point at him menacingly, as his face turned red as he tried harder to not laugh out more. Seeing the blood now smeared on your finger, you snapped back to the file your other hand held, it now covered in patches of blood spots and smears all over. You groaned a bit and turned to the side as you opened another drawer in hopes of finding something to put over the cut until it stopped bleeding.

The remainder of your shift was normal, people coming and going as they found what they needed amongst all the walls of books, and as the day went on, so too did your headache slowly go as well, its throbbing slowly becoming nothing more than a pain only when the light was a little too bright in your eyes.

As you locked up the door for the library, your jacket held over your arm as you double checked that you had successfully won the battle with the finicky lock, you thought about how amazing it would be to sleep soon. You had been feeling tired all day, your hangover making you more tired than normal, and you had been imagining climbing into bed to sleep since the halfway mark of your shift. Thankfully your bed was less than 15 minutes away from being a reality.

Crossing the bridge as you neared your home, you paused a moment as you caught sight of the alleyway you normally went down to get home. Feeling a lingering fear inside you, you gulped, your legs slowly taking you to the corner of the alley.

Pressing your back against the wall, you clenched your jacket tightly as you slowly leaned your head around to peak down the alley, your eyes wide as you did so. You frantically looked over every part of the alley you could see in the darkness, the outlines of the trashcans and one dumpster very obvious in the dark.

Seeing nothing move, you waited a few more seconds before standing up straight and taking one step into the alley. Stopping as soon as your foot hit the ground, you stared down the alley, still seeing nothing moving but still you did not move.

“…Yeah, fuck this.” Taking off from your spot, you raced down the corridor, your fists holding onto your jacket as you did so. You passed by the trash cans and dumpster, barely registering anything else in the darkness that wasn’t immediately obvious. Even as you passed the spot where you remember the large snake being, you saw nothing that resembled blood or body in the unlit area.

You reached the end in record time, you stopping once you were out of the tight space and hunching over with your hands on your knees as you tried to catch your breath with your eyes peering down the alley as you did so. It was both odd and a delight to you that nothing remained in the aisle from that night, and as you thought about what could have happened after you slept, you thought about asking Dante what he did that day the next time you saw him.

Heading inside your apartment, you were surprised to see lights on, the entire place usually unlit except for 1 light in your room when you returned. Confused, you slowly walked to the living area where most of the lights were on, your eyebrow rising as you spotted Alecz awake and reading a book.

“Hey,” they said, head not turning as they acknowledged you.

“Good…Evening?” you said, voice full of obvious confusion. “You’re not normally awake now, is something wrong?” you asked, concern now in your voice. Watching as Alecz didn’t move, you waited, aware that they were probably in the middle of a paragraph. Slowly sliding your jacket over the arm chair that was nearby, you sat yourself down in the chair, your face scrunched as you continued to wait.

“Not…really.” Came Alecz suddenly as they slid their bookmark into their book before they closed it. “I just had a question for you. Kind of about last night?”

“Oh dear, okay,” you replied as you slowly brought your legs up and crossed them on your chair. “I don’t remember coming home though, so…”

“I was just going to ask about…who brought you home.” Alecz said, their eyes looking at the floor as they talked, their hands holding their closed book between their legs.

“Oh, Dante?” you asked, your head cocking a bit as you watched your roommate.

“Yeah…him. Er…” watching as Alecz’ hand went behind their head and they rubbed the back of their neck, a minute passed before they spoke again. “Is there… anyway to, I guess…not bring him here again?” they asked finally.

Pausing as Alecz looked up to you, you met their eyes, yours blinking a couple of times as they watched you. They were nervous, it was obvious, and it was something you weren’t used to as Alecz was usually calm and collected in every situation, even in a situation where something was on fire in the middle of the night because you had forgotten that your leftovers’ box had a fork in it.

You had only known them for a relatively short amount of time, having only met them through a coworker a few months after you moved to the area. You were looking for a new place to stay, your old apartment being torn down and turned into a shopping center, something that you were very verbally upset about at work. It was a sudden notice, with your building being bought and planned to be destroyed within 2 months of the purchase date.

A coworker had heard you complaining to your boss one day, and as your boss tried to calm you down for probably close to the hundredth time, they had approached you, asking you about your moving plans. It was embarrassing, but you admitted you had been too upset to figure out what to do yet, your schedule busy and hectic with having to pack and leave much sooner than you wanted to.

“You don’t have a plan? You said you had to be out in less than a month!” your boss said, his face a bit shocked.

“Yeah, well, I only just unpacked a few months ago, I wasn’t planning on packing again and it’s been a pain!” you said, your voice full of displeasure at the situation. That was when your coworker told you about Alecz, a friend of theirs that was looking for a roommate. Your eyes lit up, you quickly asking them numerous questions about cost and when you could move in.

Less than a week later, you found yourself at your new apartment, 3 bags on your shoulder and 1 box in your hands as your new roommate let you in the door. The apartment looked very plain, there wasn’t a lot of furniture around nor decorations on the wall, which was fine to you. You had commented on it originally, but Alecz didn’t really say much about the décor and just shrugged before they lead you to the bedroom that was going to be yours.

There wasn’t anything in your room besides a desk, one that looked way too heavy for you to carry by yourself. Setting your stuff down, you looked over the room, taking in all the bareness of the walls and emptiness of the space. It wouldn’t be empty for long as your own furniture was going to be delivered soon, stuff that you had bought for your old apartment that you weren’t going to just throw away after a few months of use.

Turning around to ask your new housemate about unpacking, you noticed that they had disappeared from the hallway, your eyebrow raising a bit when you peeked into the hallway to find them. They had left the hall after you entered your room and returned to the living room, a book in hand and a coffee nearby with them sitting in a rather uncomfortable position that you would later call their ‘natural position’.

Trying not to disturb them too much, you had asked if it was alright to have a few boxes around the house for a bit, you worrying that you wouldn’t be able to unpack everything neatly in your room that day. They said it wouldn’t be a problem, and that they expected a bit of mess with you moving in.

It only took a week for you to unpack everything, all the boxes of stuff you had brought with you finally empty and broken down by the front door as you filled the house with decorations. Alecz was terribly confused at the sudden appearance of so many new things, and as they went over all the little things, they asked a lot of questions about the origin of them.

You were more than okay to go over all your things, happily explaining to them where you got each and every single thing, but sometimes you did think it was a little odd that Alecz didn’t know anything about seemingly commonly known figures. Chalking it up to Alecz maybe not being from around here, or possibly earth in general with how lackluster their knowledge was, you decided to not bring it up with them.

The first week in your new apartment was quiet, with you and Alecz having very different schedules. They were often asleep by 8 pm, something you thought was very particular, and they would often wake up right as the sun rose.

You weren’t entirely sure what they did for a living, as they didn’t really talk about themselves a lot, but you often noticed that they just sat in their natural position for long periods of time through the day.

The living situation worked out well, because although Alecz wasn’t a terribly talkative person, they were happy to listen to you as you rambled on about nothing most days. And it made you glad that there was someone who was always home, it easing your fear of getting locked out of your apartment and then having no where to go again.

There was one thing you had noticed not long after you moved in, however. As the weeks went on, you found yourself still feeling odd toward Alecz, a feeling in your body not leaving despite how comfortable you felt around them. It bothered you, the feeling not leaving despite you being able to be open and talk to them about basically anything that came to your mind and left through your mouth.

And it was as you sat there, with your legs crossed in front of you and your head tilted to the side, that you realized something important about Alecz, and exactly why they were asking you not to bring Dante around anymore.

“Oh. Oh! Oh, oh, oh!! Oh, I didn’t even thi—I totally didn—Holy shit!” you exclaimed, your hands coming up quickly, smacking into your face to cover it. Alecz looked at you, confusion heavy in their face as you watched you. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t even piece 2 and 2 together, I’m so dumb!”

“I, uh…I’m a bit lost,” they said, their face furrowed heavily as you brought your hands down to your lap.

“You don’t want Dante coming here cause of who he is, right?” you asked, your fingers tapping on your ankles as you spoke. “Cause he’s…cause his job, right?”

“Wait…do you know about…?” As Alecz spoke, apprehension spread over their face, their body tensing up. “How long have you known?”

“I literally just figured it out,” you explained. “Like, literally as I was sitting here, right now.” Pointing down to the spot where you were sitting, you watched as a bit of the concern left Alecz’ face, though their eyebrows were still furrowed. “But, yeah! I promise I won’t bring him around here anymore!”

“…Okay. Thank you.” Alecz about whispered, their hand slowly sliding over the cover of their book as they looked around the room. “I had no idea that you knew about…”

“…about demons?” you said, finishing their sentence. Watching them nod a bit, you smiled lightly and clapped your hands together. “I just learned about them recently, and I find it all very fascinating!”

“Fascinating?” hearing the word, Alecz looked up to you, their eyebrows raising as they looked over you.

“Yeah! Dante has told me a lot about demons in his shop, like the ones he’s worked with on jobs, and the big scary ones that have tried to take over the world; I had no idea about any of it!” you explained, slowly clasping your hands together. “He told me about how demons have 2 forms, and though I’ve only seen 2, him included, and the other was ugly as can be, that second form always seems to look at least a bit cool! I’m kind of curious about what you might look like, I bet your other form is really awesome!” you rambled on, Alecz’s face slowly changing into a softer expression as you went on about demons and what you had learned from Dante.

You could feel the tension leave the room as you spoke, all your words being heard by your house mate as you continued on for a while. It was only when the living room clock chimed at midnight that you realized how long you had been talking, your face flushing in embarrassment at your rambling, and so you apologized to Alecz as you rubbed your thumb over your other.

But Alecz said they didn’t mind, a small smile on their face as they raised to their feet and thanked you. You were confused, unsure of why they were thanking you for not bringing a Demon Hunter home where your roommate is a demon, something you thought should have been common sense for you but apparently had to be spelt out.

You watched as Alecz went to their room, their door slowly closing as they disappeared. Sitting for a minute by yourself, you stared at the clock, the second hand slowly ticking its way around to the 12 to repeat its path again. It was already tomorrow, you realized, a small smile on your face as you stood up to go to bed.

Making your way into your room, Bagels yelled at you as you turned on the light and you thought about how there was one less day now between you and the day you were going to visit Devil May Cry again, a thought that made you very happy to think about as you got yourself ready for bed.


	5. The Determined Force

“Dante, what the actual hell?”

“Look, I can explain!”

It had been about 5 months since you had started spending your days off at Devil May Cry, and almost every week there was something new happening in the store.

The first week you decided to spend your day off at the store, you walked in to Dante getting his ass kicked by some lady, who turned out to be a good friend of his. This was confusing to you, then what made it even more confusing was when she introduced herself as just ‘Lady’, but as she explained that Dante owed her money for something, at least the ass kicking part made sense.

She had felt bad for making you walk in to the sight of Dante getting thrown across the room and into his couch, something that caused you to panic and run to the man’s aid when he really didn’t need it, having accepted his fate since he was the one who made poor monetary decisions, and so she took you out for a nice dinner as an apology. It was a weird day, but it had ended up quite pleasant.

There was another day, just a few weeks after you had met Lady, where you met Trish when you walked in, the sight of her carrying the oversized Sparda sword that Dante sometimes used throwing you off as Trish was a woman of average size, with the Sparda sword being just about the same height as her, and yet she was just carrying it _effortlessly_.

You were amazed when you first saw her carrying the sword, and even more amazed to learn how strong she was when she fought, courtesy of Dante happily recalling stories of her kicking several demons’ asses with ease. Every time she was in the store when you came to visit you would always ask about demons if time allowed, knowing she herself was one. You had originally worried that you would offend her by asking such ignorant questions, but to your surprise she seemed to enjoy answering any and all questions, once inviting you to sit with her at a nearby coffee shop while the two of you talked over lunch.

It was after meeting the both of them that you slowly pieced together that maybe friends of Dante’s didn’t like to hang out inside Devil May Cry for too long, which kind of made sense seeing as the store always seemed to go from looking spotless and perfect to looking like an actual dumpster during the days of the week you couldn’t visit, and you couldn’t imagine anyone actually wanting to look at the store in its disaster state.

Every week you’d come into the store, and you’d pull on your cleaning gloves before you’d spend about 2 hours cleaning the store up, pulling at least 4 bags of trash out of the store every time, and every week, without fail, Dante would suggest he order pizza as a ‘thank you’ for cleaning the store, something that you had told him he didn’t need to thank you for. Off he would go and order a pizza though, one with everything on it, minus olives of course, and when he came back, he’d return to his chair before eating. You’d pull up a chair for yourself and you’d sit with him, the two of you often talking about nothing while you ate.

Most weeks, your visit was a pleasant and quiet one, where you’d just end up just sitting in the store with Dante, a book in hand as the man also read one of his magazines. The silence between you both was a comfortable one, and it was nice to be sitting down and relaxing without having to worry about being interrupted by someone who needed you to find a book for them.

Some days you found yourself dragging Dante out of the store, insisting that the man needed to get out of the store sometimes for nonbusiness related reasons as you were convinced that Dante never left the store unless it was for pizza or a job.

Dante, when you were able to get the man to leave his office, often insisted the two of you go to a nearby diner, one where it seemed like he often frequented as every time he went in, they’d hand him a strawberry sundae without him having to ask. Seeing the man only eat pizza and sundaes, you wondered how the man wasn’t in terrible shape and how he survived on such a diet.

Most days, when the sun started to go down, you’d find yourself gathering your things to head home. For the first few weeks, you’d run home as fast as possible when the sun started to set, a bit of worry overtaking you at possibly being caught outside in the dark for too long. After you had casually mentioned how you dreaded running home after every visit, Dante had insisted on walking with you home, and you didn’t argue much to his insistence, quite happy you were able to talk to the man for another half an hour.

Sometimes, however, a call would come into the store, the man always repeating the same greeting when he answered. The days that this happened, you would watch Dante’s face change into a more serious one, and as he listened to the person on the phone, you’d quietly gather your things, knowing well that there was a chance Dante had to leave to go do a job somewhere.

He always apologized for having to go work, something you didn’t understand why he’d being apologizing for as he was going to help someone. It was as you were leaving that you would always tell him that you’d see him next week, usually throwing out a suggestion of possibly going to a new place on your next day off. You’d always watch him lock the door to the store before saying goodbye and leaving, and as you walked home, if you were interrupted during your cleaning, you’d think about how much more cleaning you’d have to do the next week before you and Dante could go anywhere.

One week a few months into you spending your days off at Devil May Cry, as you sat at work, you sat and wondered what exactly Dante did in his free time when you were not there. When you were visiting, it only seemed like Dante would read magazines, or eat pizzas or sundaes while waiting for a job. You had wondered what the man could possibly be up to during the week when you weren’t there, often thinking about the mess you’d find every time you’d walk in. It didn’t add up to how the mess would be made by the man who seemed glued to his chair 90% of the time.

But this week, the mystery was slowly beginning to unravel as you were going in to surprise Dante a day early, a mix up in the schedule allowing you to have 2 days off in a row, and when you walked in today, the sight of 20 pizza boxes on top of Dante’s desk stopped you dead in your tracks, your bag of cleaning supplies falling to the ground from your hand as you stood in the door.

The man didn’t notice your presence initially, as he was preoccupied with shoveling pizza into his face as he sat in his usual position, legs high up on his desk. It was only when you cleared your throat that he noticed you, the slice of pizza that he was eating getting flung into the air as he jumped in surprise.

You looked around the store, surprised at how thoroughly clean it was; The store looked like it had been cleaned yesterday with the shelves still being in line, there were only a couple of papers scattered on the floor, and the trash cans weren’t even close to overflowing like usual.

“You’d better start explaining then,” you said, slowly leaning down and picking your bag and its contents up from the ground. Once everything was back in the bag, you stood up and made your way over to Dante’s desk, snorting a bit at the sight of the flying piece of pizza having landed on the man’s chest.

“Well, you see….” The man began, slowly peeling the greasy pizza off his chest and placing back inside the open box that sat in front of him. “Y-You’re here a day early! Get the day off?”

“I did! My boss mixed up the schedule, so I have an extra day off. And I wanted to spend it cleaning so that tomorrow I could have a full day off and spend it just relaxing,” you explained, setting your bag of stuff down before opening a box of pizza. “But you’re changing the subject, so please explain to me why your store looks so clean today?” you continued, grabbing a slice of pizza for yourself as you leaned against the desk’s edge.

“….Err….” hearing the hesitation from the man, you turned your eyes to look at him, gaze focused solely on him as you ate. “You see, there’s a good reason why the store looks good….and it’s caaaaaaaaause…”

Before Dante could continue his staling, the phone rang, the man leaping to answer it, quickly spewing out his typical ‘Devil May Cry’ greeting and then listening to the person on the other side. It was convenient timing for him, and as you sat and eat your pizza, your eyes didn’t leave his face, watching his expression change from sheepish to more serious over the time he was on the phone.

“Yeah, I can do that,” he said finally, slowly hanging up the phone after another few seconds. “Sorry, something serious has come up. This shouldn’t take too long but…”

“Oh, okay…” you said, a bit of disappointment in your voice. You slowly set the piece of pizza you were eating inside its box, gently closing the box afterwards. You couldn’t help but be disappointed, you had looked forward to coming in since the moment you woke up, excited to change up the week a little to surprise Dante,. As you panned over the whole desk looking at all the pizzas that you wondered what Dante would do with now, you heard a sigh and brought your eyes up to Dante who was looking at you, a soft expression on his face.

“Listen, I’ll explain when I get back,” he said, slowly walking himself around the desk to stand before you. “You could…wait here til I get back? Lady is supposed to come by later and I don’t think I’ll be able to get a hold of her to tell her I’ll be out.”

“I’ll wait here!” you blurted out quickly, feeling your face flush brightly. “I-I mean, it’s not like I have anything else to do.” Pulling yourself off the desk’s edge, you picked up the box of pizza that had your slice in it, quickly walking around the desk and sitting on Dante’s seat before re-opening the box and beginning to eat your piece again. “I’ll try to clean up a bit too.”

“Sounds good to me,” Dante said, a small chuckle leaving his throat. “If you can’t eat all this, just pass it out to people on the street; there are plenty of beggars that come in here all the time. It’ll probably be cold by the time I come back.”

“Ohhh, I can do that!” you grinned, finishing off your first slice. Dante hesitated for a second, his eyes meeting yours just as he turned around and left the store, the sound of the clock in the back and a car outside now the only sounds you could hear.

This wasn’t the first time you had been left alone in the store, Dante had left you alone to go and grab pizza from down the street a couple of times, but each time he had said he’d only be gone ‘For a few minutes at the most!’ which you actually learned meant at least 30 minutes.

But this time was different, as Dante didn’t give you a span of time he’d be gone, it was all up in the air for how long he’d be gone. All you knew is that at some point Lady would be stopping by and at some time after that, Dante would be returning.

It was mid-day now, the sun high in the sky and the noises outside loud as people went about their business, and you were just sat at the Devil May Cry desk, a slice of pizza dangling from your mouth as you peered around the store slowly, tallying up how many trash bags you would need to clean the store today.

You estimated only one trash bag would be needed today, assuming you’d be able to hand out whole boxes of pizza to people. Finishing up your second slice, you closed the box on your lap, slowly sliding it onto the desk as you stood up. You grabbed 2 boxes of pizzas, opening them a bit to see what was on them. Seeing every topping known to man, you finally understood how Dante was in such debt.

You went outside, slowly pacing around the immediate area of the store trying to make eye contact with people as you held out the boxes. It didn’t take a long time to pass them all out, many people almost shouting out in joy at the idea of a free pizza, especially some people who looked much less fortunate than yourself, and in only an hour, all but 3 boxes of pizza were gone.

Once Dante’s desk was cleared of the towers of the boxes, you put the three remaining boxes on the bar nearby, turning and admiring how still spotless looking the top of the wooden desk was. Normally it’d be covered in papers or liquid rings from whatever drinks Dante drank that week, but there was nothing there now except his phone.

It was a beautiful sight, and as your eyes wandered around the room, you slowly made your way to your bag, first pulling out and then pulling on your gloves, deciding today would be the day you would deep scrub the lower floor. It looked like it needed some love, the tile dingy, dark, and always covered in a bit of dirt and foot prints from Dante and whoever else had been in the store since the last time the floor was cleaned. And based on how thick some of the dirt spots were, you could only guess that it had been years since someone had tried to clean the tiles.

You scrubbed for a good 2 hours before you needed a break, your knees covered in dirt and a bit scrapped up from you cleaning a patch of the floor, backing up toward the front door a bit and then repeating the process. You listened to the jukebox for background noise to help get through the task at hand, you having looped through at least 2 records in the time, but you had finally finished about half the floor, quite impressed with yourself at how much better the cleaned floor looked in comparison to the floor that you currently stood on.

Pausing for a second, you wondered how long it would take for the floor to dry, remembering that you had left your stuff sitting in front of Dante’s desk.

You looked at the floor, hesitantly stepping one foot onto the clean floor before you made another step, taking a long stride to cover as much of the floor as you could. You repeated your long strides, only needing 3 to get close to the wooden floor.

Hearing the door open behind you, you froze, legs still spread out over the floor, you only just one step away from the step up. You turned your head a bit, slowly rotating your torso around as you tried to keep your feet from moving.

“Welcome in!” you said, reflex kicking in for greeting a visitor.

Seeing 2 eyes of different colours looking at you, you smiled a bit, and turned yourself around completely as you greeted Lady. Lady greeted you back as she closed the door behind her, and you slowly stepped your way onto the dry floor as she asked what you were doing,

“Deep cleaning,” you said as you motioned over the wet floor. “But I left my stuff next to Dante’s desk, so I was trying to not step on too much of the floor.”

“Oh, I see. This store really needs the attention, I doubt Dante even owns a broom.” Lady said as she looked over the area. “Speaking of, where is he?”

“He doesn’t, I looked. And he’s out right now, he asked me to stay here until you got here since he wouldn’t be able to get in touch with you,” you explained as you watched Lady walk over to the couch and set down her bag on it before sitting down beside it. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen you, how have you been?” you asked, slowly pulling out a chair from the nearby table and sitting down on it.

“Been good, been very busy. There’s this one job that I’ve been on for a while now.” Lady explained. “I’ve been looking for a demon bar that’s supposedly in town.”

“A demon bar?” you asked.

“Yeah. Well, it’s not an official job, but it’s a rumor I’ve been following for at least 2 months now.” Lady said as she crossed her leg over her other. “I can’t seem to get a lead on it, and I’m wondering if a place even exists.”

“Huh…A demon bar sounds expensive,” you muttered quietly.

“What was that?”

“I mean, Dante said he needed to drink a lot more than a full human to get drunk, I can only imagine how much liquor a full demon would need to get drunk,” you explained as you rubbed your chin slowly. “It’s probably way more cost effective for a demon to drink at home…”

“I don’t think every demon gets a chance to drink at home,” Lady said, a small laugh coming from her.

“Oh, that’s true… That probably makes the bar a favourite place for some demons.” Pulling your hand down from your face, you looked around the area.

You thought about Alecz and your Boss and how you had recently learned that both of them were demons, a fact that didn’t change your opinion about them at all. The fact, however, did make you wonder if either of them were friends with more demons.

You knew the answer was yes, of course they had friends that were probably demons as well, but you also wondered what kind of friends they had, and if they were good or bad. You felt a little bad thinking like that, as that was never a thought you had about your human friends and their friends, so why would you think about that for your demon friends?

Your eyes glanced to Lady for a moment, her attention now turned to her weapon that she was polishing. Watching as she cleaned off her Kalina Ann, you wondered how she came across the rumor of a demon bar.

You looked around the room again, hoping to find a pen you could use to write on yourself so you could remind yourself to ask Alecz or your Boss later about if either of them know anything about this demon bar. But you stopped, your face crinkling a bit as you wondered on if you should ask them about it, wondering if it would a wise idea to ask your friends about a place demons would enjoy hanging out and then telling that information to a demon hunter.

Your thoughts were halted, however, at the sound of the door opening which caused you to jump a bit. You spun around on your chair, your hand coming up to rest on the back of it as you saw Dante and a new person walk into the store. You greeted them both, a smile on your face as Dante looked over to you.

“Hey, glad you’re here Lady!” the other gentleman said as he closed the door and looked over Lady. She greeted the man, and slowly stood up as you turned to look at her.

“I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m J.D. Morrison, pleasure to meet you,” The man said as he removed his hat, you turning around to face him when you realized he was talking to you. Taking the man’s extended hand, you stood up and shook it, introducing yourself to Morrison. “I’m a broker, I’ve worked with Dante for quite a while now.”

“Nice to meet you,” you said as you released the man’s hand.

“Wow, the floor looks so much better!” Dante exclaimed, his eyes going over the area as he whistled. “I didn’t even realize what nice tile I had here.” Watching the man walk over the floor, you sighed a little, but realized quickly that the tile had finally dried. Morrison and Lady followed Dante, making their way over to his desk.

“Oh, wait a moment.” Sitting down at his desk, Dante put down a file he was holding, his eyes turning to you as you started putting on your cleaning gloves, determination filling you again to finish your cleaning. “Hey, we’re going to be talking about a case here.” Dante pulled out some papers from the file before him, spreading them out over the entirety of his desk so that all of the papers could be seen.

“Oh?” Grabbing some your cleaning supplies, you turned to Dante, looking over his desk at the surface covered in papers. “I was just going to keep cleaning the floor over on this side, I can keep quiet.”

“Well, it’s not that…” Dante said as he chuckled a bit. “I’ve told you about the case I’ve been working on for a few months, the one with the people ending up burnt alive?”

“Oh yeah, you’ve mentioned it,” you said, gently bringing your hand up to rub your jawline. “You’ve been working on that for a few months? Has it been that long of a case?”

“We’ve been following it for about 5 months now,” Morrison said, him turning to look at you as he leant on Dante’s desk.

“Remember that phone call I took the first time you were in?” Dante asked, his elbows coming down to the desk to rest on as his hands supported his face. “That was Morrison calling to tell me about the first victim.”

“Shit, I can’t believe it’s been that long…” you muttered, you hand coming down to your side as you looked over the three people standing before you. Lady was already beginning to read the papers on Dante’s desk, her one hand holding the paper she was reading as another slowly pulled another toward her.

“Yeah, and some of the details of the case are...pretty gross,” Dante explained as his eyes watched yours. “You going to be good with listening to us talk about it?”

“Oh, yeah! I don’t mind, I just really want to finish this floor today,” you said, a small grin on your face as you picked up your scrubbing brush.

Nodding at you, Dante turned his eyes down to the table, and as Morrison followed suit, you knelt down, your mind playing out the path of scrubbing you were going to follow as you looked over the floor.

As your body naturally followed your plan, you let your mind wander a bit, hoping to ignore most of what Dante and them were saying. You didn’t consider yourself squeamish, not anymore at least, and there were very few things that bothered you before a few months ago. It was only after the nightmares started about 4 months ago that you got completely used to gruesome things, your mind creating awfully startling things as you slept every night.

The nightmares often featured the large snake demon from before, the memory of the evening often replaying multiple times a week as you slept, sometimes allowing a twist to happen during the memory that changed how the snake came after you.

Sometimes your dreams changed the path you took, once allowing you to jump into the river from off the bridge, resulting in you drowning, or once allowing you to run to work instead of toward the park, resulting in the snake demon eating your coworkers before your eyes. Sometimes your dreams changed the ending of your memory, resulting in you being eaten alive by the beast. That was your least favourite of the outcomes your mind made.

Occasionally the snake demon wouldn’t be present at all, instead it would be replaced with another grotesque looking beast that was made of the combined parts of people, with its body being made of sewn together flesh and its arms and legs each being composed of a whole person’s body with multiple arms and legs coming off of them in sporadic directions. You never saw the face of this beast, despite you trying to view it each time it appeared, and the only thing you knew that was on the beast’s face was that it had bright red eyes with pupils that changed to slits as they grew smaller.

There had only been a handful of times where the nightmares had jolted you awake, your body drenched in sweat as you tried to ground yourself in reality, disorientation not allowing you to leave your state of sleep easily. Usually it was when something new would happen in your dream that you would find yourself abruptly waking up, sometimes with your covers being thrown off as you found yourself stumbling to the bathroom to hover over the toilet.

Mornings were even less pleasant to you now too, as nausea often overtook your being for a few hours before it began to fade, and breakfast was no longer an option for you before noon most days. On the unfortunate days where Alecz would brew a particularly strong smelling coffee, you’d find yourself hiding in your room until the odor dissipated, lest you wished to find yourself spending the early portion of the day locked in the bathroom.

Thinking of the horrid new coffee that Alecz had made this morning, one that caused you to leave the house much earlier than you planned, your stomach gurgled, gently reminding you that you hadn’t eaten anything at all for the day. Pulling yourself up and sitting back on your heels, you wiped a bit of sweat away from your brow, your eyes going over the area that you had just finished scrubbing.

You glanced over the whole floor, and seeing the contrast of the freshly cleaned floor to the parts that hadn’t been touched yet, you smiled a little, happy with the progress you were making. It was as you were about to turn back to continue your cleaning binge that you heard the group nearby talking about details of the case they were working on that caught your stomach and mind’s unfortunate attention.

“So, what makes you think that these random mix drinks and cooked livers are connected to the burn victims?” you heard Dante ask. You turned yourself a bit on your knees, glancing over to the group as each passed around a piece of paper to each other.

“Hear me out, ‘cause I know they’re connected,” Morrison replied as he pulled out a new paper from his coat pocket. “The culprit got careless on their last burning, and I was able to get the workers at the morgue to pull viable tissue samples from the victim. The mix drink that was found 10 days prior to their death was made from their blood. And the found liver matched the tissue sample too. Definitive proof that these ‘random’ findings are connected.”

“So, the culprit is taking blood and the victim’s liver out and leaving them around town before they burn them?” Lady asked as Morrison handed her the paper he had pulled out.

“Seems to be so. And the days between the findings are all consistently 5 days apart too,” Morrison explained as he pointed to part of the paper lady was holding. “Victim goes missing, 5 days later we get a call about the mix drink, 5 days later we get a call about a cooked liver at a hospital somewhere, and 5 days later we get a call about a scorched human.”

“What a terrible way to go…” Dante muttered, his eyes looking a page before him up and down.

“Probably the worst way to go. The bodies are so charred that the morgue can’t even tell when the victims are dying either, whether it’s from the fire or from not having a liver anymore,” Morrison said, his hand lightly running over a few papers in front of him anymore. “And one weird part about the liver is how it’s cut. It’s cut and prepared so well that the lab says it looks like something you’d find at an overpriced, high end restaurant.”

“…How is the liver prepared, exactly?” you said suddenly. Seeing everyone’s eyes turn over to you, you felt yourself flush a bit, quickly standing to your feet and removing your gloves.

“Do you think how it’s prepared is relevant to the case?” Lady asked, her eyebrow a bit raised as she and the others watched you.

“I-It could be…” you said quietly. Tossing your gloves and supplies to the side, you took a few steps up to Dante’s desk, slowly looking over the details of the papers that were previously too far away to see before. “I-I mean, the way I see it, most people probably don’t know how to cut a liver right, let alone how to cook one properly.

“Plus, if it’s a human liver, for someone to cook it properly, and for other people to describe it as ‘something you’d find at an overpriced, high end restaurant’, I’d say the culprit probably has a extraordinary amount of food knowledge and experience,” you continued, your eyes going up and looking at each of the people before you as you spoke. Watching Morrison grab a paper that was hidden under a few others, his eyes went over it slowly.

“Lab says…the liver was cooked through thoroughly and garnished with onions,” he said as he looked at the paper before him.

“Ew,” sticking your tongue out a bit, you tried not to imagine exactly how a human liver felt when it was completely cooked through and garnished with onions, failing to stop your brain as the thought came into your head.

“That’s a solid point though,” Lady said, her hand coming up to her face as she thought for a second.

“So, we’re looking for an expert chef then?” Dante asked, his arms crossing in front of him as he leaned back in his chair. “That only narrows this down to a good chunk of the population.”

“It’s a good start, I think,” Morrison said as he set down the paper he was holding. “It makes sense too, with the mix drink that the culprit has been leaving around.”

“Oh yeah, you said they’re leaving a mix drink made with the victim’s blood?” you asked, your eyes going over the desk searching for a paper about the mix drink.

“Honey, milk, blood, vegetable oil, and some type of liquor, most commonly vodka, are the ingredients of this terrible mix drink” Morrison explained, his eyes also going over the desk in search of a paper. Watching him shuffle through a few stacks, you watched as he pulled one page out slowly, his eyes going over it for a second before he handed the paper to you. “The weirdest part is that the drink isn’t ever actually mixed, at least, not when it’s initially found.”

Seeing that the page you were handed was a picture, you took note of the oddity that was printed on it. There was a corked bottle shown, and within the bottle were 5 different separate layers of liquid, each sitting undisturbed on top of the other in the order that Morrison had listed them off before. What made you furrow your brow was not the sight of the layers, but the label that was on the bottle, a ribbon attached to it as the paper lay hanging off of it that said, “Shake Well.”

“What…a drink,” was all you could say for a moment as you looked at each layer in the drink. “But they’re separated by, uh…” Snapping your fingers a few times, you struggled to find the right word, your brain having to go back to your primary school days to think of the concept that you were looking at.

“Oh, by density?” Lady proposed for you.

“That’s it!”

“Makes sense with the food knowledge theory, cause I sure as hell had no idea you could put milk over honey and liquor over vegetable oil.” Morrison said, his hand reaching out to take the photo from you. Handing it over to him, you again looked over the desk, wondering if there was any order to the papers that were strewn about.

“That kind of careful separation takes a lot of skill to do,” Dante said, his one hand coming up to rub his chin gently. “At least, for alcoholic drinks anyway. You have to pour anything you’re adding to a drink super precisely over a spoon usually.”

“Maybe…this demon is connected to the demon bar I’ve been looking for,” Lady said, her hand also coming up to rub her chin.

“You think they could be a worker there?” you asked as you turned to Lady.

“That’d explain how they’d be able to do this whole extra density thing they did,” Dante said, a light chuckle leaving him as he spoke as his hand waved through the air slowly.

“I’m going to go out and try to crack down on this demon bar then,” Lady said, her hands coming down to rest on her sides. “If it is tied into this case, then I’ll need to take the existence of it more seriously than just thinking it’s a rumored place to find between jobs.”

“Agreed. I’ll see what I can find out about it too,” Dante said, his hands coming down to his knees before he slowly lifted himself up to stand.

“I’ll update the force about this, see what they can find,” Morrison said as he pulled himself from the desk, his hat being placed back on his head before he nodded at the group. Watching the man take his leave, Lady followed behind just after, her walking over to her weapon on the couch and gathering it up before she said goodbye and left.

“Oh, I guess if I’m heading out…” you heard Dante mutter. Turning from the front door to him, you watched as he began to gather all the papers up into one pile. “The sun is going to be setting soon, isn’t it?”

“Y-Yeah, but that’s fine!” you said quickly. “I-I mean, I can just finish the floor tomorrow, not like it’s going to go away any time soon.” Hearing a small chuckle, you watched as Dante put all the papers into his drawer before he walked around the desk to the side you stood at. “Assuming that it’s alright I can come by tomorrow too?”

“Yeah, I might not be here though,” Dante admitted, his hand coming up to rub the back of his neck gently. “There’s only a few more days until the next victim is taken, so I might head out early in the morning.”

“That’s fine, I mean…” you started, quickly gathering your things as Dante made his way to the door. Deciding against hauling all your cleaning supplies home, you placed them near the table by the front door and grabbed the remainder of your stuff. “I’ll just stop by and see if you’re here, at least it’ll get me out of the house for a little bit!”

“Sounds good to me,” Dante said, his hand gently resting itself on your shoulder as you exited the store.

After the man locked the door, you watched as he began to walk in the opposite direction of you, you sighing a bit at the thought of not being able to finish the floor that you were so hoping to get sparkling clean today.

Closing the front door to your apartment, you paused a second, your ears trying to pick up any sound inside the home. Hearing a page turn and a small sigh, you followed the noise, your eyes falling on Alecz in their usual position in the living room. You greeted them, slowly walking your way over to the nearby chair as you waited for their response.

“…Hey,” they finally said, their eyes coming up for only a second to acknowledge you.

“Mind if I ask you something?”

“What’s up?” they asked, their bookmark gently being set into their book before it was closed.

“You ever heard of a demon bar?” you asked, your hands gently pulling your legs up from the floor to cross them in front of you.

“A demon bar?” Alecz’s hand came up, resting up under their chain as their face contorted in thought. “I…don’t think so.”

“Oh, okay,” you said quietly. “I was only asking cause there’s this case Dante’s working on, and they’re thinking a killer demon might be a worker at a demon bar somewhere around here,” you explained, your fingers tapping on the sides of your feet as you spoke.

“Oh, that’s not good.” Alecz replied.

“Not at all.” Slowly bringing yourself to your feet, Alecz slowly opened their book up, their eyes falling to it only a moment later. “I’d thought I’d at least ask, in case you had heard anything.”

“If… I hear anything,” they started. “I’ll let you know.” Thanking them, you smiled a bit before you made your way to your room. Bagels started screaming as soon as she saw you, hoping to procure some food out of you 2 hours before the set dinner time. Laying yourself down next to her, you crossed your arms under your head, your mind wandering to tomorrow, hoping that Dante would be in the store even for just a little bit when you decided to go visit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The more dialogue I write, the more I realize I have no idea how humans talk to each other, so that's FUN


	6. The Simple Oversight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm gonna update this on Sundays from now on

Sometimes you wondered if sleeping was really healthy for you with how awful you felt when you woke up most mornings. Dragging yourself out of your bed and starting your daily routine, you tried your best to finish all your morning tasks faster than normal, hoping to leave the house earlier than you had originally intended to the day before. And it was as Alecz was brewing a new type of coffee that you finally woke up and were able to speed through everything, the smell and now forth coming nausea driving you to get out of your house as fast as possible.

The sun wasn’t shining when you walked out of your apartment and began your path to Devil May Cry, something you were fine with as it meant you wouldn’t become overheated from your walk by the rays of light. Sometimes the feeling of cold that was enhanced by the surrounding humidity and the heat from the strong sun made it hard to choose what to wear on certain days. You almost always had your jacket with you for this reason, so that at the very least you could protect yourself from any rain or snow were the weather to decide it wanted to change up the day a bit.

Grabbing ahold of the door handle and turning it, you felt your lips twitch a little as the handle moved, quickly throwing open the door before stepping inside. At his desk was Dante, his elbow resting on his desk while his hand supported his head, and his brow furrowed up as his eyes went over his entire desk’s top full of papers.

Not wanting to interrupt him, you gently closed the door, making sure to turn the handle as the door went gently into place and slowly letting the handle go as to not let the latch click too loudly. Walking up to Dante’s desk, your eyes took in the sight of all the papers before him, most filled with pictures and typed out words but a few with handwritten words as well.

“Hey, good morning.” Dante muttered as you got closer.

“Morning. Hard at work already?” you asked, gently leaning yourself on the desk as you turned your head to the side to try to read a paper at the top of the mess.

“Yeah, if the pattern continues, then a new liver will be found at one of the hospitals around here in 2 days,” Dante explained, his head coming up from his hand and his arms slowly crossing over his chest. “So, I’m trying to find…a pattern or something, in all this mess.”

“A pattern, huh…” you muttered, slowly flipping over the paper you were reading as the words trailed onto the other side. The page told you of one of the victims, a man who was age 26 and who had recently moved back to town after having left for university some years prior. “Makes sense, I mean, the culprit is doing the same thing for each of their victims at the same day intervals, so of course there are more patterns somewhere in this case.”

“Yeah, but I can’t find shit!” Dante about exclaimed, his voice full of frustration. “I’ve got Trish, Lady, and Morrison and his force looking for patterns and clues too. We’re hoping to find something before the culprit leaves the victim’s liver.”

“2 days to find the pattern, huh?” you muttered, gently placing the paper you were reading down as you slowly picked up a new one. The paper talked about a missing person, one who hadn’t been seen since about 2 months before today. Their information was on it, including all their public information and medical records as well.

“I have no clue how many drugs this shit is on, but it’s gotta be a lot with how insane their M.O. is,” Dante said, slowly bringing his hand up to run through his hair. “It’s obvious they like alcohol though, as Morrison said that each of the mix drinks had a different kind of liquor in them. So, alcohol mixed with some other drugs is how they’re getting by apparently.”

“What an M.O….” you again muttered, flipping over the new paper you held. The front of it talked about the remains of one of the victims, and how their body had little left to it after being found in an alley.

They had been discovered by a homeless woman who spent much of her time in the alley, and who was terribly disturbed to find the remains in the middle of the corridor. The back of the paper had a picture of the body, the remains barely recognizable as a person besides the distinct shape of where their body had melted into the ground. You couldn’t help by stick your tongue out a little bit at the sight, and it was when you felt your stomach flip a bit that you removed your eyes from the page and looked on the desk for a new page to read.

“…You listening?” Dante asked, gently pulling the page you held from your hand, snapping your attention to him quickly. “I don’t think you’re supposed to look at these actually.”

“Oh, whoops. Sorry?” Bringing your hand to the back of your neck, you slowly ran your fingers through your hair as you watched Dante begin to gather all the pages together into a pile. You watched his hands work the papers together for a few seconds before you looked up, catching sight of the man giving you a cocked smile as he watched you. You felt yourself flush quickly before you looked back down to his hands again.

“I was going to head out soon, actually,” The man said, his fingers struggling to align the stack of papers into a single neat stack.

“Oh, really? Going to try to find more street info?” you asked, hesitating for a moment before you reached for the papers Dante had. “Here, let me take half at least.”

“Try is the key word there.” Receiving half of the stack from the man, you began to tap all the papers on the desktop while your fingers loosely held onto them, allowing them space to shuffle around each other. Using your palms as a space for the papers to hit against, you were able to bring the stack into order quickly, and as you set the neat pile on the desk, Dante continued to struggle with his half.

“Did you have no luck yesterday?” you asked, hesitantly reaching for the papers Dante held still. The man paused, looking at you for a second before stubbornly handing over the papers.

“None at all. This criminal is good at what they do, that’s all I really gathered,” the man explained, his eyes watching your hands as you repeated your previous tapping movement to sort the papers. As you finally aligned the edges of the papers, Dante took hold of the ones on the desk before reaching for the ones you held. You handed them over and watched as he put all the papers in his desk drawer. “Sorry you came all this way just for me to have to kick you out.”

“Totally fine! I was actually going to head to work and do some research!” you grinned, your hands coming up to grasp onto the strap of your bag.

“Research? What’re you researching?” inquired the man, his hands coming down on the desk gently as he lifted himself to his feet.

“I was going to check old news records and clips to see if there are any details about this criminal in other areas,” you explained. “Seems odd for someone to just, literally out of nowhere, kidnap people and do such bizarre things in such a bizarre way.”

“Oh, I’m sure Morrison’s got people who do that…” Dante muttered as he walked around his desk. You shrugged at him a little as he began to walk toward the front door.

“I’m hoping that my outside perspective might help?” you proposed as you followed the man. “I’ve got nothing else to do since I can’t finish this damned floor,” you continued, a hint of bitterness filling your voice as you passed over the section of floor you were talking about, earning a small chuckle from Dante.

“It’ll still be there next week, don’t worry.” Holding open the door for you, you walked yourself outside before Dante too passed through the door, gently bringing the door closed behind him as he stepped out.

“I hope so; I worked hard on it, so I was hoping to revel in its beauty for at least a week before you tried to replace it!” Stepping down onto the sidewalk, you turned around and watched Dante’s arms move as the man locked the door to the store.

“Well, that’s good. I’ve got the boys coming down in 2 weeks to redo the entire floor so your wish will be granted!” Dante said as he turned around, and your tongue poked out of your mouth a little bit at his response.

For a moment, you just stood and looked at the man, your eyes passing over each part of his face slowly as nothing was said by you or him. You could see that Dante too was looking over your face, and it was only after a few moments that you realized that you still had a little part of your tongue sticking out. You felt yourself flush, and quickly pulled your tongue back in your mouth as your one hands came up to the back of your neck. The man let out a little chuckle, one that was different than his normal chuckle, one that was deeper and more full. You felt your face grow hotter, your hand firmly rubbing the back of your neck as you turned your head away from Dante.

“I-If I find anything,” you sputtered out quickly, your gaze fixating on the nearby bench you had once hid behind. “I’ll call you or something, cause I don’t know when you’ll be back in. I-I mean, I’m assuming that you’ll come home at some point but I’m sure you don’t need me barging my way in suddenly and randomly at night unless it’s for something important. Though I guess if I don’t find anything, there’s the assumption I’ll be back here next week on my normal day off, which is definitely a good assumption, but I can always come in super early one day this week if I do find something the previous day, though I’m no—”

“I’ll make sure to be here Thursday,” Dante said softly, his voice cutting off your sputtering quickly. You nodded, your eyes refusing to remove themselves from the bench. It was as they were there that you noticed the blood stain on the wood grain, something that made your stomach turn a little bit at the sight of. “At the very least, I think I can manage to be here to update you on what’s happened.”

“S-Sounds good to me!” you said quickly. Without looking up, you quickly turned on your foot and started off toward work, and as you felt your face refuse to cool down, you couldn’t help but bring both your hands up to smack yourself gently. In the distance, still watching you as you walked, Dante couldn’t help but smile a soft smile as you walked off, one that didn’t leave his face until he was halfway to the Morrison’s office.

“Hey, why’re you here?”

“I’m researching!” You knew your boss was going to give you a little bit of trouble for going into work on your day off, as people rarely even passed by the library on their day off unless it was for their paycheck. As you neared the front desk where your boss sat, you couldn’t help but laugh a bit at the extremely confused face he was making at you.

“Researching? Since when do you read anything other fiction books?” your boss asked, his confused look turning into a smug one quickly. You rolled your eyes at him and reached over the desk for your keys.

“Sometimes I wanna try new things!” you said, slowly shuffling through your keys one by one. “But this is for a case actually, so I’m going to be heading into the archives room.”

“A case?” your boss asked, his voice full of confusion again. “Do you work for Dante now too?”

“…Sort of, not really?” was all you could say, your hand finally finding the key to the archives room.

Heading toward the archives room, you sighed lightly, unsure of where you’d even start inside. Opening the door and turning all the lights on, you grabbed the nearby binder and flipped it open. You hummed to yourself, gently flipping through the pages of the binder as you glanced at each page, wondering how far back you should go to look for information. You decided to start with big stories from the last 20 years, ones that never had a conclusion to them in future papers.

You snapped closed the binder and set it down quietly before you began to head to the filing cabinets. You weren’t the biggest fan of using microfilm for research as the process of finding the piece or pieces you needed could get frustrating, but you were glad the resource was available to you and everyone else.

Sliding open a drawer for papers from the beginning months of 20 years ago, you leaned over and turned on the microfilm reader before you start flipping through the microfilm boxes, slowly checking the labels of each of them as the reader started up.

Pulling out one microfilm reel, you carefully unraveled the film before you snapped the wheel onto the latch. Unraveling the reel off the wheel, you carefully pulled it under the guiding arm and attached it to the opposite end of the machine. Pushing the tray in, the glass above the film snapped down into place and the screen of the reader lit up, showing the newspaper that was printed on the film. While you slowly rotated the screen with the nearby dial, you began to use the controls to roll through the paper to find the article you were wanting to read. Setting the screen so that the paper was upright and showed the article you wanted to read, you sat down and started your research.

For 7 hours you repeated this process of finding a new microfilm and loading it into the machine to read. You lost count after you had loaded in 100 reels, something about counting the number of reels you were loading made the day seem like it was dragging on forever, and in the end you hadn’t found out anything new for the case you were researching for. You did, however, find some information about other cases from a long time ago that you had noted down.

It was fascinating to learn about this city from what had happened in the past. You had never felt a strong connection to here before, and you had only moved here because you were born around here and had the drive to move away from where your family currently lived. Having only lived in those 2 places in your life, one of which you didn’t even have any memory of at all since you were so small when you moved away, it was almost obvious that you would move back here instead of going to somewhere new that you had no ties to.

Reading all the papers, however, made you feel a little closer to the city, having learned a lot about the history of the murders that have taken place here. Definitely a weird way to feel connected to the city you were born in you thought, but at least it was a connection of some sorts.

Locking up the archives room at the end of the day, you leaned your head against the door for a second, your eyes and body exhausted from all the reading you had done. Checking the paper you held in your hand, you looked at all the cases from the past that you still wanted to read up on. There were quite a few cases that hadn’t been solved here, some simple and some more complex, but none of them seemed to have any ties to the current case, which was disappointing.

The next day was the beginning of your weekly routine but instead of just sitting at the front desk and sorting out all the reserved books immediately as you walked in, you hauled out one of the microfilm readers and set it near you.

Your boss was terribly confused at the sudden appearance of the machine near the front. You explained to him that you were hoping to use it in your spare time between the jobs he would give you in the morning, also proposing to him that you would want people to ask about the machine in curiosity so that maybe they could learn something new that day.

Your boss was less than impressed by your attempt to justify moving the machine out of the archives room, but he waved it off, telling you that you just had to make sure it found its way back into the locked room when you left each day. You begrudgingly agreed, understanding why he’d want the expensive machine locked away but also upset that you’d have the haul the rather heavy machine out every day.

The days passed by slowly as you made your way through the archives of papers the library held in your spare time, the hours of the day going slower than it normally would on a typical day. You blamed the boring stories you read for the time being slowed down, but you knew you’d have to read both the boring and exciting stories to gather all the information in them and so you tried to stay determined as you progressed through the years of papers. You didn’t bother to count the number of reels you had loaded in through the whole week, completely sure you would be very unhappy with how high the number was with how little information you were pulling from the collection of papers.

On Wednesday, just before you were about to leave for the day, you organized all your notes in front of you, carefully piling them into groups so that each group was about one case you had been keeping track of. In total, there were 6 groups of papers, 5 of which were cases that you had taken interest in as you read through the years. You had only managed to get through about 2 and a half years’ worth of papers, as you found yourself skimming through most of the reels and only reading the papers’ articles once in a while. But time had added up quickly, and loading, unloading, and then searching for the next microfilm reel was time consuming.

You were a bit disappointed at the lack of progress you had made in your research attempt, and as you looked at the smallest group, one that only consisted of a single piece of paper, you felt your disappointment grow more. Picking up the paper, you sighed, and read over lines of information you had written down. Everything that was on this paper was information that wasn’t new to you and was what you had gathered from Morrison, Lady, and Dante when they were all in the store the previous week. You knew that there wasn’t a guarantee you would find any new info for this case in the past anywhere, but you were hoping to find something, literally anything, at the very least that could help.

“What’s that?” came a voice suddenly. Jumping and dropping the paper you held, you threw your head around to see your boss, his eyes slowly following the paper you once held to the floor. Leaning down to where the paper landed on the floor, you grabbed it, carefully trying not to wrinkle it up as you lifted yourself back to sitting on your chair.

“My notes from the week,” you explained as you turned around to face your boss. “I didn’t find a lot for the case I was working on but…I found stuff for other cases!”

“Damn, you really went through a lot of microfilms, huh?” Your boss walked over, his eyes looking over the stacks of papers you had in front of you as you looked down at the paper you held.

“Yeah, but…I feel like I barely got through any,” you sighed as you read through the old notes again. Stopping at the part of notes that listed out the ingredients of the found mix drinks, you looked up quickly and about smacked the paper onto the desk near you before you exclaimed, “I totally forgot!”

“Forgot what?” your boss asked, a bit of surprise in his voice as he looked at you.

“Have you ever heard of a demon bar around here?” you asked.

“A demon bar?”

“Yeah! It has to do with this case, and I totally forgot about it!” you explained, your hands coming up and running through your hair slowly. “I could’ve been looking up bars around here to help, dammit!” You felt your leg begin to bounce on the crate it was resting on, a bit of anxiety overtaking you suddenly.

“Oh, well, I mean, yeah. I have heard of a demon bar, hell, I go to one all the time,” your boss said, a small, nervous chuckle leaving him as he saw your frustration.

“Wait, really?!”

“Yeah, but…you said it had to do with the case?” Your boss’ head cocked a little and a look of confusion formed on his face.

“Possibly,” you said, holding up one finger to the man. “We don’t know for a fact and…I don’t think I can tell you any details but…” Bringing your arms to your chest, you crossed them and continued to bounce your leg, your mind going through ways to explain the relevance of the demon bar to your boss without giving away too many details of the case.

“Well, that’s fair, it is a criminal case, I guess,” your boss said, his body slowly leaning up against the desk near you. “I can tell you that I know all the regulars there though, and none of them have ever gotten into trouble. Or even seem like troublemakers really.”

“Really? That’s good,” you said, slowly bringing your hands down into your lap. “I’ll make sure to relay that information to Lady and Dante then.”

“Lady?”

“Though, I guess my investigative curiosity is satisfied then, but I’m still personally wondering what a demon bar is like,” you said, slowly bringing one hand up to rub your chin. Your boss watched you, his eyes going over you for a second before he reached over to grab a nearby pen and scratch pad.

“Here,” he said as he wrote something down on the pad. “This is the address. You have to promise me you won’t go and cause trouble before I hand this over, okay?” Pulling one piece of paper off of the pad, your boss began to hand it over to you. You looked at it for a second before looking up to meet your boss’ eye.

“When do I ever cause trouble?” you said, a small smirk appearing on your face.

“Literally always.” Taking the paper from your boss’ hand, you promised him that you were only going to visit once and that you were mostly curious about how strong the drinks were there. Your boss laughed at this, and recommended you get a drink with a lot of ice in it when you went.

He told you that he would be going sometime early next week as there was a darts tournament going on then, something you couldn’t help but laugh a little bit at as you packed up your belongings slowly. You admitted you weren’t sure when you were going to visit, possibly the next day since you’d have the time, but if you didn’t go then, you’d probably join him on the night of the darts tournament to see the fun.

When you opened the door to Devil May Cry, you felt the excitement you had inside you slowly drain at the sight before you. Dante was hunched over his desk, his head again resting in his hands as his very tired looking eyes went over the papers on his desk. You quietly closed the door, repeating your turning of the handle to prevent the latch from making too much noise until the door was in place and letting go before you walked over to the man, hesitantly greeting him. He greeted you back, his eyes not even looking up at you for a moment.

“Bad week?” you hesitantly asked, your body slowly leaning on the desk as you watched the man closely.

“Yeah,” Dante muttered, his eyes finally coming up to meet yours. “Another liver was found on Saturday, unfortunately. And now, we’re running out of time…”

“Saturday?” you repeated before you slowly started to count the days on the week on your fingers. “Oh shit, that means today is…”

“Yeah…” was all Dante said before his eyes slowly went down to his desk again. “I know I said I’d wait here ‘til you got here, but I absolutely need to go out and look today.” Watching the man stand up slowly, you pulled yourself off the desk.

“…If you want, I can just wait here.” You proposed gently. “I-In case someone calls or something? I would just be here cleaning anyway.” Dante looked over you, his tired eyes slowly going over your being as you waited for him to respond. A small sigh left him after a moment, and as he walked his way toward the door, your eyes followed him.

“If that’s what you want to do…” the man muttered, and as he stopped just before the door for a moment, he turned to face you. “I’ll be back at 4ish, to see if anyone’s called.”

“Okay!” you replied, a small smile forming on your face. The man turned and left, the door slamming loudly behind him, causing you to jump a little. You watched the door for a minute, and as your smile slowly faded, you sighed a little bit. Disappointment filled you, and coupled with the nausea you were still feeling, you decided it would be best to just sit down for a little while before getting to work on the floor.

Walking around Dante’s desk, you slowly set your bag down and plopped onto the chair, carefully walking it forward so that you were properly sitting in front of the desk. You looked over Dante’s desk, a bit surprised to see that he forgot to put all the papers away before he left. Hesitating for a moment, you debated with yourself if you should put them away for the man.

Shaking your head, you began to grab at the papers, carefully pulling them into one stack in your hands. As you reached for the drawer next to you, your eyes couldn’t help but read the page in front of you, quickly skimming over what was typed on it. As your hand lay on the drawer handle, you didn’t pull it out, instead you just continued to read the page about one of the burnt bodies. You felt bad, knowing you probably shouldn’t be reading this, but you couldn’t stop yourself.

Placing the front page down, you skimmed the next page which held information about one of the mix drinks. Setting down the new page, you repeated your skimming and setting, carefully sorting the papers into new groups on the desk. It took about 30 minutes of sorting, but as you set down the last page, you smiled a little, happy with your sorting skills. Reaching for the pile which held information about the mix drinks and the pile that held information about known victims, you stopped. Grabbing only the pile of known victims, you carefully spread out the pages on the desk, making sure you could see all of them.

Going over each victim’s info, you tried to find something similar among them, something that would link them together and explain why they had been taken. You noted that their birthdays were very close in their day number, something you may have thought could be a correlation except that their months of birth were spread out through the whole year.

Sighing a bit, you gently ran your hand over the pages to gather them again and set them aside as you picked up the mix drink pages. Repeating your spreading of the pages, you paused as you noticed how close the found locations of the drinks were to Devil May Cry.

Standing up and jogging over to the shelf below the stairs, you skimmed over the boxes, your hand resting on one of the shelves as you searched its holdings. Reaching up to the top and pulling out a file, you smiled a bit as you found the map you knew Dante had somewhere in the store. Returning to the desk, you unfolded the map and ran your finger flat along the folds until it was flat enough to sit on the desk by itself.

Trailing your finger along the river until you found your house and then following the path you took every week, you located Devil May Cry’s address on the map, and as you looked around the room for a pen, you tried to keep your finger on that spot. Throwing open the drawers of the desk, you found a permanent marker and looked at it for a second. You shrugged a bit, deciding you’d just buy Dante a new map later, assuming he’d ever need one again, before you marked the location of the store on the paper map.

Picking up one paper, you carefully mapped out the closest address you could find to where the mix drink on the paper had been found and gave it a label number. Setting that paper down when the address was marked, you grabbed a nearby paper and wrote down the specific address plus its label number before you picked up a new mix drink page and repeated your marking for each page.

Once you had all the mix drink locations and addresses marked, you grabbed the stack of papers that held the information about the hospitals where the livers had been found. You, again, spread the papers out in front of you before you one-by-one marked the locations on the map and their address on another paper.

It took you about 20 minutes to have everything marked, but as you placed the closed permanent marker on your shirt’s neckline, you used both your hands to carefully flatten the map out more as you stared at it. The hospitals in the area were spread out over the entirety of the city, something that made sense so that all citizens would be near a hospital should something happen to them at any point. Something odd you noticed, however, was the locations of all the mix drinks.

No 2 drinks had been found on the same 20 by 4 block system between major roads, something that was particular to you. With how the city was laid out, there were 4 north-south running roads and 20 West-East running roads per 1 square mile of block in a grid system, and each of the blocks was separated by a major road, so you knew that it would be easy for someone to randomly place 2 mix drinks in the same mile block. The fact that there was only 1 drink in 9 separate different blocks made you suspect that the culprit of these crimes was leaving them in those specific places on purpose.

Grabbing the marker again, you uncapped it and placed the cap between your teeth before carefully drawing a circle around where the mix drink marks were. Checking the map key for measurements, you noted that the mix drinks were all found within a 4-and-a-half-mile radius, which conveniently encircled both Devil May Cry and the library in it. And yet no mix drink had been found on the mile-long block where Devil May Cry and your work sat, something you thought was a bit particular until you saw that there were 5 other blocks within the circle that also had no mix drink found there.

Picking up the paper of addresses, you carefully ran your finger down the list, trying to see if there was a correlation of numbers between them. Seeing none, you felt your lips tighten a bit around the marker cap, and you set down the paper. Gripping the cap between your fingers and letting it roll between them, you thought for a second, knowing that something strange was going on, and that the M.O. of this culprit was odd enough with the drinks and livers being placed in random places, so there just had to be a pattern to their madness.

Pausing a second, you remembered a book you had read a long time ago, one with a plot that revolved around lesbian space pirates that surprised you with its ending, and how the book used a coordinate system to explain how the crew of the ship travelled around. Closing your eyes tightly and putting your head into your hands, you thought hard and tried to dig out the deeply buried memories, trying to remember exactly how the coordinate system worked, the memory of it very faint in your mind.

Shaking your head quickly, you sat down and grabbed a nearby ruler, and using the map key, you were able to mark down how far a mile was on the ruler. Running your hand over the map again, you found the latitude and longitude line marks, and very carefully, you began to measure of the distance in miles from each coordinate line. Your measurements weren’t exact, you knew, but as you tried your best to mark the coordinates of each place, you hoped your imprecise measurements were going to be good enough.

When you had each coordinate marked down, you looked over the lot of them in hopes of seeing any similarities between them, and yet you found no correlation between them. Grabbing the stack of victims’ papers again, you went through each one, running your finger over each in hopes of finding a similarity to the coordinates. Having no luck, you groaned loudly and slapped down the pile of papers again.

Tapping your fingers on the desk for a minute, you hummed as you thought. Pausing your fingers abruptly, you remembered that coordinates had 2 forms to them, and that directional coordinates could be converted to decimals. Groaning again at the thought of doing math, you began to open the drawers of Dante’s desk, hoping to find a calculator inside. Having no luck, you grabbed a stack of empty paper and placed it next to the coordinates page that you had placed on the map.

Grabbing the permeant marker again, you slowly and begrudgingly began to convert the coordinates to their decimal form, making sure to put the decimal coordinate next to the mix drink label.

It took what seemed like forever, but was really only about 1 hour, to do all the math, your head hurting a bit from frustration as you wrote down the last decimal. Groaning loudly again, you picked up the victims’ papers just before you threw the permanent marker down on the desk. You watched as it rolled away and off the edge, and you couldn’t stop your lips from tightening at the sight.

Holding up the first page of the stack of papers, you looked over it, your eyes skimming the information once again in hopes of finding a correlation. But you stopped quickly, your eyes catching sight of their birthday near the top. Setting down the page on the desk, you looked over to the coordinates page again.

Bringing them closer together, you noticed that the first 2 numbers to the right of the decimal places in one of the North and West coordinates matched the person’s date and month of birth. Shaking your head, you grabbed another page and set it over the previous victim’s. Again, you noticed that another North and West coordinate’s first 2 decimal places matched the victim’s day and month of birth.

For each of the victims’ pages you had, there was a decimal coordinate that matched their date of birth, something that you thought was oddly coincidental. Running your hand through your hair as you stared at the map, you could feel your heart racing, your mind wondering if you had found the correlation of the victims. Not wanting to get ahead of yourself, you slowly rested your elbows on the desk and placed your head in your hands as you looked over the map again, hoping to find an answer to this correlation.

It was as you were looking at the first mix drink location, located about 2 miles away from the store, that you felt your heart skip a beat. Reaching over quickly and shuffling through your bag, you quickly pulled out the notepad paper your boss had given you the previous day and slammed it onto the desk. Using your finger, you slowly ran it over the map, following the street names as you attempted to locate where the address on the paper was.

A gasp left your mouth as you found it, its location not even a half mile away from where the first mix drink had been left. Standing up suddenly and throwing the chair back from the force of you standing, you jumped as the chair fell over, and your heart pounded in your chest as you stared at the chair on the floor for a few seconds.

Scrambling to grab your bag, you about threw yourself around the desk and down the stairs before you stopped yourself. Turning around and looking at the desk for a second, your eyes wandered to the marker on the floor. Tapping your fingers on your side for a second, you quickly jumped back up to the top floor and grabbed the writing tool and a spare piece of paper from the desk.

Setting down your bag roughly against the desk’s front, you uncapped the marker and began to write on the paper. You counted out the date for 5 days from today and marked it on the paper, making sure to circle it boldly. Glancing at the coordinates page, you noted the same first 2 digits that each coordinate had for their North and West decimals, before you dotted them and then wrote your own birthday in each of their tenths and hundredths decimal places, the North getting the day and the West getting the month. You gulped loudly and set down the marker as you looked over the paper once more. Reaching over to the stack of victims’ papers, you carefully grabbed all the papers before you reached down, firmly grabbing the strap of your bag before you turned around and ran out of the store, a specific destination filling your mind.


	7. The Birthday Wonder

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updated tags.

“…You look very young for your age.” Seeing the bouncer’s eyes going over you, you felt your lips pull tight as your fingers tapped against your side. You knew you looked young, this wasn’t the first time someone had made that comment to you, but you hoped the bouncer wouldn’t give you any trouble as you were already rather frustrated.

Finding where the bar address was wasn’t hard to do, it was actually located at a major intersection of 2 large streets so all you had to do was follow one street until the numbers led up to the bar’s address. What was hard to do, however, was find the entrance to the bar. You thought that it was possible you had read the numbers wrong, but as you walked down the street more, the new numbers were higher than the bar’s address. Confused, you returned to the corner and looked over the store fronts that were before you.

There was a thrift shop, one that had an obnoxious amount of papers lining its windows, with each one having an item on sale that was inside. You thought it was a bit odd they had so many posted items on their window, but if people were just window shopping, that was probably the best way to show them what they could buy inside. Some of the more interesting items that were posted were a homemade hamster cage/bin combo, a unicycle that was missing its wheel, and a piano that was missing all the sharp keys.

Then there was a salon, one that had an insane amount of lights lining the window. It was almost blinding to look at it, and as you looked to the center of the window, you saw the name of the salon strung together on a set of neon lights next to a neon lighted ‘open’ sign. Next to the door of the salon was a sign that listed the stores hours, and you noted how odd they were; the salon was only open Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, from 6 in the morning to 6 at night.

Next to the salon was what appeared to be a vacant store front, one that looked like it hadn’t been used in years. The windows were completely boarded up, and there was grass growing between the building and concrete, and as you looked over the door and mail box, you could see a thick layer of dust covering the top of the mail box and the decorative pieces of the sides as well.

As you were looking at the empty store front’s door, you felt your face furrow in frustration at the distinct lack of entrance to a bar. You had left Devil May Cry and ran straight here, literally ran which, by the feeling of pain in your legs was definitely a mistake, hoping to find your way inside the shop as fast as possible. Yet you stood at the corner of the street staring at the store fronts for a good 20 minutes, no entrance to a bar to be seen at the address or at any of the address nearby. It was only as you relooked from the empty store to the salon again that you noticed a narrow alleyway between, one that was smaller than a typical alley.

Walking your way across the street and over to the store fronts, you looked down the passageway a bit, trying to keep yourself from looking too suspicious as you did so and failing miserably. Down the alley was what appeared to be a wall covered in vines, one that was hard to see because of the lack of light that was able to get into the corridor from above. Looking around the area behind you, you carefully turned to the side and began to slide your way down the alleyway, putting your hand in front of you on the wall as you made your way down.

The alleyway went on for a little while, and as your hand gently met with the vines, you carefully tried to tap the wall behind the vines. Finding no wall present and instead having your hand brushing the vines to the side, you pulled your hand back slowly and gulped. Carefully pushing your hand through the hanging plant, you felt only open space past the vines, and after taking a deep breath, you slowly slid your way into the vines, carefully stepping your way through. As you emerged past the vines, you found yourself in another alleyway, one that was larger and more open than the one you were just in. Taking in the area around you, you noticed the completely concrete area around you, illuminated by the sky above and one light that was located down the way from where you stood. You quickly caught the smell of a cigarette, and as your head turned about to find the source, you eyes caught sight of a person sitting about 20 feet down from you who was looking at you.

Freezing in place, you stared at the person for a second, your fingers tapping on your side as they stared back at you. The person’s hand came up, carefully pulling the cigarette from their lips as they let out all the smoke they had inhaled.

“What d’ya want, kid?” They asked. Stopping your fingers, you opened your mouth for a second, trying to find words to say.

“I, uh…Was looking for a…drink?” you finally said, your voice sounding more unsure and unconfident than you wanted it too.

“…ID?” they said, their face unchanging as they kept looking at you. Feeling yourself untense a bit, you opened your bag and shuffled through the pockets in search of your ID. Grabbing it, you pulled your hand from you bag and made your way over to the person, and hesitantly handed it to them.

The person took your ID and looked over it slowly, carefully taking another drag from their cigarette as they did so. Looking from your ID to you and then back again, you could see that they were unimpressed and as you waited, you tried not to make a face at them as they released the smoke from their lungs onto your ID.

“…A’ight,” they said after about a minute. Handing your ID back to you, they pointed toward the door near them and jerked their head at it. “It’s pretty early, but I’m sure Wren will still serve ya.” Taking your ID from the person, you thanked them as you chuckled nervously a bit. Placing your ID back into your bag’s pocket, you started to take a few steps toward the door before you heard the person speak again. “Any reason you’re drinking this early? Have a bad breakup?” Feeling your face crinkle a bit at the person’s words, you hesitantly nodded as you glanced to the side to see them.

“…That obvious, huh?” you lied, unsure of what about you gave this person the impression you had just had a breakup. You knew that you wouldn’t be able to explain the true reason you were here, so you were glad that this person allowed you to have a believable reason to be searching out a bar so early in the day.

“Makes sense,” The person said, their hand slowly coming down and snuffing their cigarette out on the side of the building. Watching them stand up, you waited, your hand gently tapping at your side again. The person stepped over toward the door, and as they reached and opened it, they coughed loudly a few times.

“Wren! You ready to make a breakup drink?” the person shouted into the building. Raising your eyebrow a bit, you waited behind the person.

“This early?” came a soft voice from inside. The person at the door slowly stepped aside, their hand motioning for you to head into the door. You thanked them and made your way into the door.

The inside was nothing like the concrete outside, and as you looked around the room, you wondered if you had entered a portal of some sort to a new world. The room was completely lit up with sting lights, all hanging from the ceiling, and at the center of the room was an extravagant chandelier from which all the hanging lights originated from. Some of the hanging lights went down the wall on the far end of the room and made their way into the actual bar.

The bar was lit up with lights that were alternating between red and orange behind the drinks it had lining the wall, and the amount of bottles that were presented on the shelves was impressive, easily surpassing 300 different types of liquor. The counter of the bar was high and a dark wood finish, with 6 metal bar stools that sat in front of it. The countertop of the bar continued over the edge of the counter and was carved into flowers along the side and hanging off of the pistils of the carved flowers were a few more lights that changed from green to yellow slower than the wall lights. 

There were tables lining the sides of the room, and they were alternating tall and short but long one after another, with each short table having 4 chairs at them but the tall only having 2. In the center of the room was a billiards table, one with red felt instead the typical green, and in the corner near the bar you could see 2 different arcade machines, both of which were currently turned off. You recognized the games that the arcade machines decorative sides had on the side, and you smiled a little at the good choice of games.

Stepping more into the room, you looked down at the tile below, quite impressed with how fancy it looked and how not disgusting it seemed to feel, something that was quite a contrast to literally any other bar you had been in before. You were so used to floors of bars being sticky, or at the very least Turning your eyes to the walls, you began to go over the many decorations that adorned in. There were hundreds of small polaroid pictures on it, all of them between the other decorations of clean looking car parts, sports equipment, and vinyl records.

As you made your way to the bar, you noticed a person behind it, and as they were seemingly fighting with one of the TVs that was mounted on the wall, you slowly sat your way down onto one of the stools. Waiting for the person, you watched as they kept trying to turn the TV on, alternating between using the remote, messing with the receiver, and reaching behind it to mess with something on the back of the box. They fought with the oversized TV for a few minutes before they sighed and set down the remote before turning to you and greeting you with a grin.

“You the one that needs the breakup drink?” the woman asked. Forgetting yourself for a second, you quickly put your bag onto a stool next to you and nodded as you gently tapped your fingers on the bar top.

“Y-Yeah!”

“Alright, write out your name here,” the lady said as she lifted a paper and pen onto the counter and slid them toward you.

“My name?” you asked, slowly taking the pen and paper, unsure of the relevance of your name for a shot.

“Yeah. Breakup drinks are shots made from liquors that spell your name, and then your choice of chaser,” she explained, a small smile on her face as she crossed her arms. Making a small noise of understanding, you hesitated for a second before writing your preferred name on the paper. Deciding that you shouldn’t write your full name out, you put the pen on the paper before you slowly slid the paper back to the bartender, who gently lifted up the pen and paper to read. “Alright, so I’ll need…” she muttered as she thought, slowly turning around and grabbing a cocktail shaker.

You watched the bartender go over the wall of liquors, slowly grabbing bottles and setting down on the counter nearby before she scooped some ice into the shaker. One bottle of liquor that she pulled down was familiar to you, as you recognized it as a drink Dante had given you in the past, but the remainder of the bottles were only faintly familiar to you, ones you probably only saw in passing at the store in the past. The woman poured a little of one drink into the measurement end of their shaker’s lid before pouring it into the larger shaker base, and she repeated this for each liquor bottle whose named started with a letter in your name.

“I’m Wren, by the way. Nice to meet you,” the lady said suddenly as she closed the top of the shaker into the base and began to shake the mix drink together. “How’d you find out about here? You’re not part of our…usual clientele,” Hearing the bartender named Wren’s voice trail off a bit, you could tell that she was a bit wary of you, a fact that made obvious sense to you as it was almost impossible to find this place on accident, except maybe if you were someone who were trying to explore to boarded up thrift.

“Oh, my boss told me about here,” you admitted as you watched Wren shake the cocktail mixer, condensation quickly appearing on the outside of the metal container.

“Your boss?”

“Yeah, he’s like so tall,” you described, lifting your hand up to about where your boss stood in height before you continued, “and he’s older, has a lot of sunspots on his face, his nose kind of looks like it’s been broken a few times and—”

“Oh, Ansley? Who works at the library?” Wren asked as she set down the shaker, carefully twisting and then pulling out the top of the shaker as she slid a shot glass on the counter in front of you. Thinking for a second, you realized that you hadn’t ever learned of your boss’s name. You weren’t even sure he had been called anything other than boss the entire time you had known him so, hell, you weren’t even sure he had a name until right now, but you nodded regardless.

“Yeah, Ansley,” you confirmed. Wren carefully poured you a shot, lifting the shaker slowly as she topped off the glass where she brought it down for a moment to completely fill the glass with style, and after she set down the shaker next to the glass, she slowly pulled out an old-fashioned whiskey glass.

“What do you want as a chaser? Even if you don’t normally need a chaser, I’m going to recommend one for this drink,” Wren chuckled. You asked what chasers were available, and she started to list out a few to you. Choosing just a simple soda, Wren brought up the soda gun and filled the new glass to the brim with your choice of soda before she slid the glass over where it stopped just in front of you.

“Thank you. I normally need a chaser after shots cause I’m just not that great with taking shots,” you admitted, slowly grabbing the shot glass with your dominant hand and the chaser with your other. You brought the shot glass up, smelling it for a second before you gulped and took the shoot in.

This shot wasn’t even nearly close to as bad as the one that Dante had given to you almost half a year ago, which had a taste you knew you could never forget, and as you set the glass down and brought the chaser up to sip on, you almost thought that the shot you had just taken could be described as pleasant. As you felt the warm of liquor settle down in your stomach, you realized that your nausea was already completely gone but that you still hadn’t eaten anything today, which you knew wasn’t going to bode well should you have more than this drink today.

“I’m surprised that Ansley told you about here,” Wren said suddenly, her eyes on you as she leaned against the back of the bar. Setting your chaser down, you looked over to her. “I’m assuming that you know then?”

“Know? Oh, about…” mouthing ‘demons’ to Wren, she nodded, and you continued, “Yeah, I do. And I was curious as to what kind of drinks would be here. My bo…Ansley told me to try something light, so I had a little bit of an idea of how strong drinks were, but I wanted to try them myself.”

“Oh, well shit, I would’ve given you something light if you had asked!” Wren said, a small chuckle leaving her. You couldn’t help but chuckle a little bit as well, and as you brought the chaser up to sip on again, you glanced over the bar lights. “And I only ask about how you found here cause we almost exclusively serve regulars, very rarely do any wanderers come in here,” Wren explained as she lifted herself up from the bar and walked over to the nearby sink.

You turned your eyes to her and watched her for a moment as she rinsed out the cocktail shaker. Feeling a bit of anxiety grow inside you, you gently set down your glass before you reached into your bag. You moved your hand around inside for a moment before you pulled out a picture of one of the possible victims. You looked at the picture for a second as you ran your thumb over the glossy paper, trying to remember any details about them from the papers you had read earlier.

“Speaking…of regulars,” you said quietly, and as Wren’s attention turned from the sink to you, you went on, “Do you recognize this person?” Setting down the picture on the bar top, you watched Wren’s demeanor change as she at the picture, the soft expression on her face changing into one that held no distinguishable emotion on it. As you waited for her to reply, you watched Wren’s face, hoping to see any change of emotion that could appear on it, but as no new expression appeared, Wren only shook her head.

“I don’t, sorry,” was all she said, her eyes turning back to the sink again. You gulped, knowing that something was up but as you felt the alcohol start to affect you, you were unable to figure out exactly what was off, whether it was Wren’s response or her facial expression. Pulling the picture away from the bar, you slowly placed it in your bag, quietly thanking Wren.

Looking to your right, unsure of what you should do now, you noticed a door nearby, and as you stared at it, you wondered where it could lead. Thinking about the layout of the bar, you realized that the only place that the door could lead to was the vacant store front. Picking up your chaser again and sipping on it, you wondered if the boarded-up store front was a way to keep people away from the bar. You thought that it was a good idea if the owners and employees didn’t want random people to walk into a demon safe area, but you also wondered if anyone had ever tried to break in to loot the store only to find an extravagant looking bar behind the wooden boards.

For a few minutes there was no speaking, your mind drifting around into different thoughts as the alcohol finally started to blur your senses, and the only noise in the area was the soft music from the nearby speakers and the sound of water running over dishes as they were washed. You choose to look over the liquors behind the bar again, your eyes going over them but your mind soon turning to run through ideas of what you were going to do next. The sudden sound of a person loudly sitting themselves next to you snapped you out of your mind, and you quickly turned your head to the side to see a new person at the bar.

“Hey, Wren. Avaa wanted to know if you counted the tills last night,” the man said, his eyes only focused on Wren. You turned your head back to face the bar collection again, but slowly letting your eyes wander over to Wren as the stranger spoke instead. “She said that we were a bit off again.” Reaching and taking a sip of your chaser again, you carefully tapped your free fingers lightly on the edge of the bar.

“No, I didn’t, Lain,” Wren said, her voice much lower than it was before. Looking over Wren’s face, her expression had changed again, this time to one that showed frustration. Or maybe it was concern, you weren’t entirely sure with your dulled senses. You felt your face crinkle a bit at her expression, and when Wren caught you looking at her, you quickly felt yourself flush and returned your eyes to the liquor bottles as you lifted your glass to sip again.

You heard a sigh next to you, one that felt like it was drawn out longer than it needed to be, and you struggled to keep yourself from turning to look at the person. The man remained seated next to you, and as you sat in your stool, completely aware of their presence next to you, your felt your heart rate rise a little as a bit of anxiety grew in your being.

As your fingers continued to tap on the bar top, you couldn’t exactly tell why, but you felt odd as the man sat next to you. You had only taken a quick glance at him, but from that small look you had formed an unpleasant feeling in your body, and coupled with Wren’s face changing as the man remained sitting next to you, the feeling only continued to grow more the longer he remained in the stool next to you.

As suddenly as when the man sat down, he was getting up, the bar stool he sat in making a loud scrapping noise on the ground that caused you to jump a bit as he stood. You couldn’t stop yourself from turning to look at the man for a quick moment, but as he made his way around the stool and to the area to the right of the bar, the only glimpse of him that you caught was the markings of a tattoo on his arm that rested on the back of the stool as he moved.

You stopped yourself from turning to watch the man leave the room, but as you heard a door open and then slam shut, you couldn’t stop your heart skipping at beat at the noise and the anxiety in your center from spreading to the rest of you. As the feeling of anxiety spread through you, you could feel your heart beat faster as well, the feeling of it racing causing you to feel a bit of panic on top of the anxiety in you. You gulped, a bit worried about how loud everything seemed to be suddenly with the water of the sink seeming to be running directly next to your ear it seemed, and as you slowly lifted up your glass to sip from as you turned in your chair to face behind the bar again, a sudden hand came and grabbed your arm, causing you to let your drink slip from your grasp as you gasped.

“You need to go,” you heard Wren say, her voice like an echo as she spoke, and her face so contorted in such strong feeling that you knew immediately what she was feeling: fear. “NOW.”

You tried to sputter out words to Wren, your voice facing deaf to the bartender as she only repeated herself to you, her hand’s grasp on you tightening slightly. Her hand was shaking, you noticed, a feeling that seemed so minimal for how strongly she seemed to have hold on you. You closed your mouth slowly, and as you nodded and thanked her, you realized that you could no longer hear your own voice, nor any of the music that was previously playing in the background.

The feeling of panic immediately over took your whole being as Wren released her hold on you, and as you looked over her face once more, you couldn’t help but focus on the tears that seemed to have formed in her eyes, a sight that allowed the flood of anxiety to try to compete with the panic in your body.

You pushed yourself from the bar, your arms fully extending as you brought your feet to the ground that seemed farther away than you thought, and as you pushed yourself off of the bar and toward the door on the other side of the room, you tried to listen for the sound of the bar stool falling and hitting the ground. Yet you heard no crash nor thud of metal onto tile, the sound of your heart racing and the low noise of ringing being the only things that you could make out in your ears as you ran through the room and past the billiards table.

Throwing open the door, you struggled to keep your legs moving, each feeling heavier and more stiff with each step you took as you tried to leave. You reached your arms out as you neared the wall next to the narrow alley, hoping to press up against it gently to ground yourself as to alleviate some of the panic you were feeling. Instead, your arms weakly pressed against the wall with your elbows refusing to bend slowly, causing you to smash into the wall, the side of your face cracking into the concrete and now allowing the ringing noise in your ears to increase dramatically.

You willed your legs to hold you up as your face lay against the cold concrete, your head now pounding from the collision, but as the feeling in your legs finally became too much to over power, your hands and face slowly slid down the wall together when your knees buckled. You collapsed onto the floor, your arms barely able to protect your head from again smashing into the concrete as your entire body gave into gravity pulling you down.

As you lay on the cold ground for a moment, you tried to kick your legs, hoping to find a way to push off anything that was nearby in an effort to make your way down the narrow alleyway, but quickly you realized that your legs would not cooperate with you as you could no longer even feel them. You braced your hands onto the ground next to you head, and as you spread out your fingers to try to help your efforts, you felt every part of your body shaking in struggle as the feeling of heaviness and stiffness slowly began to crawl up from your legs.

You could feel yourself release a sound from your mouth, one of struggle as you attempted to lift yourself up before you were unable to also feel your arms, but the ringing in your ears did not allow you to hear anything around you. As your arms slowly gave into the feeling of heft that was overtaking you, your cheek smacked into the ground again, hard enough to jolt your eyes completely open and bring your attention to the glimpse of light that was shining through the vines before you.

It was as you stared at the light for a moment that you noticed that the edges of your vision were dark, spots of black slowly speckling their way toward the center of your view. Within a moment of seeing your sight slowly vanishing, you again tried to make your legs move, hoping to gain any sort of sensation in them, but again you felt nothing but stiffness and heft, the feeling now overtaking everything on you except your eyes.

The spots of black in your vision grew from the edges of your sight and began to spot into the light you focused on, overtaking it slowly with the amount of spots increasing with every harsh breath you weren’t even aware you were taking until you could no longer feeling anything but the air leaving your mouth. As the last of your sight was painted black, you tried your hardest to focus on the blurred object that slowly descended in front of you and blocked you from the light behind the vines, your mind momentarily thinking that you had been able to successfully move your arm.

It was as you felt one last harsh breath leave your lips that you realized that you hadn’t last tried to move your arm but your legs. Your mind knew that you should’ve felt complete panic at the realization that it wasn’t your body that blocked the light before you as it faded, and yet all that was left to feel was the heaviness that had finally taken over your eyes.


	8. The Vague Hope

You don’t know how long you sat in darkness for, but for the entire time that you couldn’t see anything your mind lingered on the things you had done in the morning. Replaying the day, you remembered fleeing your house at the smell of Alecz’s horrid coffee and making your way to Devil May Cry, and you remembered how awful Dante looked before he left the store to go search for clues to the case he was working.

Where your memory started to blur, however, was after Dante had left. You were able to remember sitting down and sorting out all the case files on Dante’s desk, and you remembered reading the information about the possible victims within the files, although many of the details about them were hazy and unclear in your mind as you tried to think of them. There was also the map that you had gotten out from one of the shelves in the store too, and it was possible that you tried to write down the locations of the mix drinks and/or murder victims’ body locations, because those were the only things that made sense to put on a map.

Your memory fails to recall much after you started comparing the victim’s information to some other information you had pulled from somewhere else, and as you tried your hardest to recall what exactly you were comparing to the victim’s info, your head throbbed. You grew irritated at the throbbing quickly, as each time you tried to dig into the back of your mind to think of what you were just doing, a pulse of pain shot through your head. Finally having enough of the pain, you slowly opened your eyes, wanting to find something to take to rid yourself of the annoyance in you.

Expecting to see the Devil May Cry store as you peeped your eyes open, you felt yourself tense up at the sight before you that was not the store and was, in fact, a place you had never been before.

It was almost completely dark where you were, with the only source of light being a little bit of light that was peeking through little slits in the ceiling. Trying to look up, you groaned at the sudden pain that shot through your head and neck, causing you to flinch your arms as you tried to reach up and grab at your forehead, but when your arms did not meet your head and instead remained in place above you, you began to panic.

Glancing up again, this time aware of the pain that was going to shoot through you, you braced yourself and quickly looked up, a gasp leaving your mouth at the pain and your eyes slamming shut despite your awareness of the pain. You breathed harshly through your nose for a few seconds, and as you counted the seconds that passed by, the pain slowly dulled in your neck and head. Once the pain was tolerable, you slowly opened your eyes, and tried to steady your breath.

What you saw first were you arms above you, held in place by metal cuffs, the sight of which made the panic inside of you grow even more. You pulled at the cuffs, cursing as the harsh edges dug into your wrists. Twisting your arms around to be able to at least change your position a bit, you felt your elbows pop at the rotation, a feeling that again caused you to curse before you twisted your arms back to their original place.

Looking away from your arms and their confines, you moved your eyes to focus on the lights above you and slowly went over the entire ceiling. You were able to see the light coming through the slits at equal distances apart, but only a little bit of light was able to come through from above, only enough to illuminate what appeared to be sides of support beams running perpendicular to the lights. You cocked your head a bit, completely confused as to where you could be, but as you stared longer at the support beams and lights, you realized that you had to be under some sort of wooden flooring with how evenly spread out the slits where.

Taking your eyes away from the ceiling, you tried to focus your sight to in front of you, and as your eyes slowly adjusted to not looking at light anymore, you skimmed around the room slowly in hopes of seeing anything else that may be in the room with you.

As you were looking around you, a loud and sudden crack came from above, causing you to jump as a sudden flood of light rushed into the room from the far ceiling corner of the room. Closing your eyes quickly at the rush of light, you heard a few thuds above you, and as you heard the thuds, you knew you were in fact below wooden flooring of some sorts.

“Finally awake?” came a voice suddenly just before you heard another rather soft thud in front of you. Slowly opening your eyes to allow them to adjust to the new light, you caught sight of a person standing on the other side of the room, their body leaning on a small table that you couldn’t see when it was dark. You stared at the person, your eyes running over their whole being for a second before you saw the tattoo on their arm that seemed faintly familiar.

“…Who…Well, where am I?” you finally asked as you kept your eyes on the man. He chuckled, and as he pulled himself off of the desk and started to walk over to where you were stuck, you felt yourself tense up.

“Don’t worry, you’re safe here,” the man said as he stopped before you, and as his hand came up closer to your face, you tried to throw your head back away from it, smacking yourself sharply into the wall. “Come on now, you’re gonna pass out again if you do that,” the man said, his tone sharp as his hand grabbed onto your chin and lowered your face to look at him.

“Ya’know, that probably wouldn’t be a bad thing…” you muttered as you felt your head throb a little. You watched as the expression on the man before you changed, and as you watched him, his eyes went over your face, leaving you feeling disgusted at his gaze and at his hand as it firmly held on to your chin.

“Yeah, and why’s that?” he asked quietly, his hand finally releasing itself from you as both his hands went to rest on his sides.

“Cause then I wouldn’t have to look at you,” you said quietly, your head turning away from the man to look around the room quickly. There wasn’t much in the room besides the desk on the other end, just one chair and what appeared to be a dirty pillow on the floor in the far corner were all that was present.

Hearing a strangled noise next to you, you turned your gaze to the man, your eyes catching the quick sight of blurred flesh coming at you before you unable to see anything but black again. You had a feeling that the man wasn’t going to take well to your remark, but you were surprised that he would so quick to knock you out. As you sat in darkness, you mind focused on the man and who he was. His tattoo was so familiar to you, something you knew you had seen before but you were unable to find the memories of where you had seen it before in your mind.

As you slowly accepted that you wouldn’t be able to dig up the memory you wanted, you felt yourself come back to conscious. Your line of sight came back more slowly than it had previously, and as you slowly opened your eyes a bit, a sharp throb of pain struck through your head.

Trying again to move your hands to your head, you realized that they were no longer above you but were now behind you, and as you tried to adjust yourself, you also realized that there was a pleasant feeling of coldness on one of your arms as well as your face. Shifting your body a bit, you found yourself able to sit up slowly, and you looked around the room slowly before you noticed the metal cuffs on the wall that had once held you. You were now free from them it seemed, but not completely free to move as your arms were still held together with something behind your back.

Twisting your arms around a bit, you struggled to identify what exactly what was holding your arms tightly, as you could feel that the material was rough but wasn’t like anything you had felt before. Sighing, you twisted your arms back into place and slowly slid your legs in front of you. Pushing on the ground, you slowly backed into the cold wall, and struggled to cross your legs in front of you. Finally accomplishing a ‘comfortable’ position, you waited, your eyes falling down to your legs as you waited for them to adjust to the darkness.

For the entire time you were alone in the room, all you had were your thoughts to entertain yourself. You thought about the room you were in, the man who had put you here, the case as a whole and how you got here, and at some point your mind wandered onto thoughts of Devil May Cry and Dante.

The room was stuffy, to say the least, and it was horrible. Your eyes had long adjusted to the lack of light inside, and as long as you kept your head down, then you were able to see the outline of the desk, chair, and pillow that were nearby. The desk and chair sat on the other side of you, and both were just simple pieces of furniture: the desk had no drawers on it, and looked like it was barely being held up by its worn wooden legs, and the chair was hardly any different as it looked like it would break if you sat on it. The pillow in the corner was the weirdest thing to you, as it was hardly recognizable as a pillow. You had scooted over to poke it with your foot at some point to confirm it was a pillow and not just a pile of mold. The puff of air it let out when you barely nudged it horrified you and you quickly found yourself retreating back into the corner opposite of it. You kept a close eye on it as you worried the pile of mold would gain sentience and come eat you with how disgusting it was. At least if the moldy pillow came to life and attacked you, you wouldn’t have to die at the hands of a serial killer who may eat humans with how strange his M.O. was.

In the short encounter that you had had with the man who lived above, you hadn’t learned anything extraordinary about him, nor did you learn anything while you sat under the flooring in complete silence. You had insulted his looks, but he looked just like any other person, and you had only insulted him to get a reaction out of him, thankful that he knocked you out and then left you alone afterwards. Maybe his ego was hurt and he didn’t want to deal with you anymore, or maybe he was just going about his daily life, completely aware that there was a person sitting below his floorboards and grinning about it. Either way, you preferred to be alone than in his company.

He looked average at best, minus his tattoo which looked like it had just been finished as the colours on it stood out and the linework was crisp. His tattoo bothered you still, as when you saw it before, there was a feeling of nagging that had begun to pull at you, but you were unable to find any memory of seeing such a tattoo before. It was almost maddening, knowing that there was something in your brain that your body knew and was telling you through the nagging feeling, and yet you had no way to stop the feeling or any way to dig up the memory you needed to remember.

The presence of the man, when he was in the room earlier, disgusted you to your core. You weren’t sure why, but as soon as the man had entered the room, you felt your body tense up, a feeling of disgust running through it. You knew he was a demon as the dense feeling in your chest let you know, but there was something else about him, something that you couldn’t quite put words to, that made you want to avoid him at all costs. Maybe it was because you knew what the man had done to the other people, knew that he had killed so many people for seemingly unknown reasons, that you physically felt disgusted at him. The feeling of disgust lingered on your face from where he had punched you, and you wished for nothing more than a hot shower to wash it off. 

You thought about all of the man’s victims, all 9 of them, and how each of them had probably all sat in the same exact position you were in: in pain, tied up and terribly alone in the cold, dark room, unaware of how much time had passed since they first were brought in. They were probably very confused and frightened at what was happening, unsure of what their fates would be when the man came back to see them. It made your stomach turn to think about how terrified each of them must have been the entire time, and if you had anything in your stomach to release, you would have probably thrown it up with how angry you were at the man.

It was as you were thinking about the case that your mind wandered over to the store, and in turn, Dante. You wondered what he was up to, if he had found your note and ran straight to Morrison and Lady about it, or if he had gone out to try to find you. Was he just waiting now, as the days slowly ticked down to the date you had left on the note for him, or was he still looking around the city for more clues to solve this case? You hoped that he had gotten some sleep at least, and you hoped the stress that was on him had lightened up, even just a little bit.

You recalled the first time you had drank with Dante, with your mind dwelling on the memory of him killing the large snake demon in front of the store, and your body dwelling on the craving for a strong drink. It seemed like it wasn’t that long ago that you had sat down with him and asked him so many questions about demons and their existences, but it had been half a year since that long night, something you could barely believe. It had become such a normal thing to find yourself at Devil May Cry every week after that day, the feeling of excitement driving you to wake up early and walk to the store each day off you had.

Every time you had walked into the store, no matter what was happening, whether it was Dante getting bullied by Lady, or the man getting day drunk as he had just returned from a job, there was always a warm and pleasant feeling that flooded you as soon as you opened the door. You thought about Dante’s smile, how it’d warm your heart to see when he laughed at a dumb pun you’d come up with, or how sometimes just seeing his dumb face would be enough to lighten your mood on bad days, and it was as you were sitting in the corner that you longed for just one more day of that normality.

This case had caused the man so much stress, and the more months that it drew on, the more stress it seemed to cause him. He was worried about the victims, it was obvious as he had spent so much time going around the city to try to finish this case, and you knew he had been turning down other jobs as he focused on this one. You wondered how Dante felt as he wandered the streets as he tried to find information, how the worry inside him was affecting his stress levels.

You wondered if Dante was worried about you. You knew his worry was about finding the killer and preventing him was taking new people, but right now, with you being the next victim, was he worried about you? There was a part of you felt like he was, hoped he was, and it gave you a horrible feeling to think that.

It wasn’t that you wanted him to be worried, as it would’ve been better if he didn’t have to worry at all, but that part of you who wanted Dante to worry about you did wonder if he would miss you next Thursday when you didn’t show up at the store. You knew you would miss him, hell, you already missed him. You missed him every week when you left Devil May Cry until the moment you walked in again the next week. It was embarrassing, and it horrified you, but that part of you that wanted him to miss you too still remained.

Between your thoughts and almost sporadically it seemed, you’d find yourself drifting to sleep, your eyes and body heavy for some reason. You thought it was odd that you were dozing off so much while you were doing nothing, but at the same time it made sense as your thoughts could only entertain you for so long before the feeling of boredom would overtake you again. The feeling of boredom was welcome, however, in contrast to the feeling of dread that filled you every time you’d think about how much time you had left before day 5 and then, the more dreaded point on the criminal’s timeline, day 10 would come up.

As you sat in the corner of the room again, your mind wandering over from thought to thought as time passed by without an indication still, you were brought back to reality from your overslept, madness dazed state by the sudden appearance of light flooding into the room, a sight that would’ve been welcome if it weren’t for the accompanied body that appeared from the light onto the floor before you.

You only saw the man for a second before something was thrown on you, and it collided with your body for you didn’t have the energy to even attempt to dodge the incoming object. As the item fell from your chest to your lap, you quickly recognized it as your bag, and as you looked over the now dirty and ripped bag, you wondered how the man came into procession of it. You remembered bringing it with you to Devil May Cry, but you had yet to remember anything new from that day so you weren’t sure if you had had your bag on you when you were taken.

“Who do you work for?!” the man screamed sudden, his body quickly moving across the room. He reached down as he stood in front of you, grasping your shirt before almost effortlessly lifting you up from the ground only to push you harshly into the wall. You gasped at the sudden force being pressed on you, and as your arms struggled to remain unsquished under your weight and the man’s press, you tried to keep your eyes on the ground. “I asked you a question!” the man shouted, his free hand coming up to grab your chin roughly and forcing you to face him.

“I don’t work for anyone,” you spat at him. You weren’t lying to the man as you weren’t hired to work on finding him, but you knew that he wasn’t going to accept that answer, and as you felt the fist in your shirt clench and your body being moved, you braced yourself before you were thrown across the room.

You slid across the floor for a second after you slammed into the wooden flooring, a loud groan coming from you as you finally stopped. You closed your eyes tightly as you breathe heavily, trying to help the pain that was coursing through your whole body from the hard impact. Hearing footsteps approaching, you refused to open your eyes at the sound, instead again bracing yourself for anything that could happen.

“I was nice to the other ones, but I won’t be to you!” you heard from behind closed eyes. Just as the footsteps stopped right before you, your left arm was grabbed at the elbow suddenly and you were raised up roughly. It was only a second after you were brought to be sitting up that you felt something cold and sharp on the inside of your forearm. Snapping your eyes open at the feeling, you soon felt a sharp pain rip through your arm with a warmth quickly flowing down you, and as you cried out at the pain, the hold on your elbow only tightened. The man pressed his claw into your arm more, causing you to flinch away and cry out more.

You turned your gaze to your arm quickly, your breathing turning harsh and rapid at the sight of blood flowing out of your arm and onto the floor and your legs. You refused to look at the man who held you, but you knew he had a twisted grin on his face as he watched you, his gratification in hurting you so strong that you could feel it radiate around him. As his hand refused to release you when you pulled against it, you couldn’t tell what you felt more disgusting from: his emotions and touch, or the sticky blood that was now covering you.

As blood slid down your arm, your captor brought up a small glass to the flow, gently scrapping it along your skin into the path of blood and collected it until the glass was complete full. You tried to pull away again, your arm attempting to yank itself from the man, and it was when you felt the claw press further into your arm that you stopped yourself and turned your attention to your breaths. You worked to slow down your erratic breathing as you started seeing spots around your vision, hoping to prevent yourself from having a complete panic attack in front of the unpredictable culprit.

“I think that this is enough for now,” whispered the man as he stood up, his arm pulling you up a bit as he rose. You continued to focus on your breathing, your eyes fixated on the floor as you attempted to work your lungs to take in slower and deeper breaths. You felt the hand on you tighten a bit when you didn’t respond, and it was only a moment later that your eyes focused on the sight of a foot coming in close before it collided with your face.

You were thrown to the side by the force of the kick, the man’s hand releasing you as you were tossed back. Landing on the ground roughly, you tried your best to keep your head from slamming into the floor, but as you felt your back take the impact of another kick, you lost your ability to brace yourself as you cried out from the pain that was surging through your body.

After the second kick hit, you knew the man was saying something to you, but your head was spinning, the surroundings of the room were completely out of focus as you tried to open your eyes a bit, and your ears were ringing loudly. The pain in your arm was less apartment now as the pain in your back became your main focus, as each breath that you took caused a jolt of pain to run through your entire body. You again tried to calm yourself and your breaths, but as the pain in your chest and head continued to throb, you found yourself unable to stop the rapid breaths that left you.

You didn’t hear the man behind you leave the room, but as suddenly as the light had appeared before, it was gone, the opening from above closing behind him. You remained laying on the floor, your breaths still the only thing you could focus on. You weren’t sure how long you were on the floor for, as you weren’t able to count the time as it passed while you tried to gain control of your breathing. It felt like an eternity before you were able to take a deep breath again, and the feeling of being able to completely fill your lungs was complete bliss to you. Yet you still remained on the floor, fear keeping your from moving, and it wasn’t long after you began to breathe almost normally again that you noticed that you were shaking and crying.

You tried to blink out all of the tears from your eyes, but as they slid from your cheek directly onto the floor more were made to replace the ones that were creating a puddle on the floor. You gave up on trying to stop yourself from crying, instead you turned your attention to the throbbing in your arm that matched your heart rate.

You knew you should be moving, knew that now was your chance to try to escape, but you couldn’t bring your body to move. You could only focus on the pain in your arm now. You had lost a lot of blood, it was obvious from the puddle that was on the ground near you and as you felt more blood seep down your arm the longer you stayed on the floor.

Everything felt horrible right now, your arm was throbbing in time with your heart, your back had a dull pain lingering in it that threatened your breathing still, your head pounded from its collision with the man’s foot and then the floor, but it was your heart that hurt the most of all.

You weren’t sure how long you had been on the ground, how long you sat in physical pain, but it seemed like you had spent hours laying on the cold floor as blood slowly gathered underneath you. It may have only been a few minutes in reality as your blood wasn’t flooding out of you due to your complete dehydration, but those few minutes were agonizing as your body rested on the floor, your cheek and arm growing cold from the wooden flooring, and the throbbing of pain coursing through you.

The longer you waited for something to happen, the more you found yourself trying to ignore the physical pain that you felt and the more you turned to focus on the pain you felt inside, the piercing of despair more prominent in your heart the more the seconds ticked on passed you.

You thought about how you had gotten here, to this point where you lay slowly bleeding out while you waited for something, anything, to happen. It was as you were thinking about the man who had cut you down and the tattoo that he had on his arm, with its familiarity that had bothered you so much before, that you finally began to remember what you had done after you left Devil May Cry.

Maybe it was because you were losing so much blood, or maybe it was the complete panic and despair that you felt inside, but your brain slowly released the locked up memories of the bar, and although they were fuzzy, you replayed them in your head as a way to keep yourself from thinking about your body that was slowly becoming cold in a way like you had never felt before.

You knew what your chances of surviving walking straight into the hands of a serial killer were, you had accepted that there was a good chance you wouldn’t be able to walk away alive once you had walked into the bar, and at the time you were okay with that. It was something that you felt like you needed to do, something that you felt compelled to do given the situation. You knew that the victims of this killer were suffering, it was obvious by what he was doing with the different items he was leaving around town that he enjoyed hurting them, and you couldn’t stand it.

You had no way of knowing what Dante, or Lady, or even Morrison were going to do when they arrived back at Devil May Cry, expecting to find you there cleaning only to find a piece of paper with simple coordinates and today’s date on it, whether or not they would understand what they were supposed to do with that information.

It was as you were laying there that you cursed yourself for not writing down more information for them, but time was short when you had left them a note, and you knew you had to hurry. Someone was going to be taken again soon, and you needed to make sure that the next person taken was you, to prevent someone else from feeling the pain that this man was going to inflict on them.

You were aware of what was going to happen to you when you sat down at the bar, the pictures of victims inside your bag as bait for the man, and at the time you were okay with it; okay with what was going to happen, whether you lived or died in the hands of this serial killer, because at least someone else was being spared the pain. Even if Dante, Lady, and Morrison didn’t understand your note, even if it was after you were gone that they found the mix drink at your birthday’s coordinates that they understood what the killer was doing, at the very least the culprit wouldn’t have hurt and killed an innocent person with no idea what was going to happen.

And yet, even though you knew that you had accepted that you were probably going to die, why did you still feel such horrid despair inside you? You knew that this was a possibility for you, knew that the man was taking his victim’s blood, knew that the victims either died from their liver being removed or from the man setting them in fire on the 15th day of them being missing, but yet there was something sitting inside you that made you want to go back; to go back and redo everything so you wouldn’t end up here.

You refused to call it regret, as you didn’t want someone else to be laying in your place, in pain and confused, but there was this part of you that did want that. You hated that part, you wished it would hide away and never return, and you felt shame for letting it exist inside you. Maybe it was that regret that was fueling your despair, but you knew that this was what you had whole heartedly wanted to do when you left your note, knew that you had actually fully accepted that this was going to be your fate. So then why did you feel regret? Was there something else you were supposed to do that you had forgotten about? Was there something you wanted to do before you died?

You released a shaky breath, and as you slowly inhaled to release another, you began to tap your fingers gently on the floor as your sight slowly began to spot into darkness. It was a comfort to be able to still move them in the familiar way, the feeling of the wooden floor below you reminding you of Dante’s desk that you would always drum your fingers on.

Tap, tap, tap, tap.

It was an awkward angle that your arm sat at, and it almost hurt to turn your wrist completely to tap them on the floor, but still you continued.

Tap, tap, tap, tap.

There was a sudden noise from above, a crash that barely mattered to you as you kept the last amount of focus you had on your hand.

Tap, tap, tap, tap.

You could hear something happening above, but the noises were barely recognizable to you as they were muffled by the ceiling between you and them.

Tap, tap, tap, tap.

The noises continued on, with more crashes being heard as well as some thuds and cracks, and you thought you could hear the sounds of voices accompanying the chaos too, but you weren’t sure.

Tap, tap, tap, tap.

Your senses were slowly failing as your body grew colder, your ears gradually losing their ability to hear and your body slowly losing the ability to feel anything at all.

Tap, tap, tap, tap.

As sudden as the first crash, there was then silence from above. You struggled to keep your hand moving, the field of your sight almost completely gone, but still you willed yourself with a determination you didn’t know you had.

Tap, tap, tap, tap.

**Tap.**

You froze, your mind confused at the sound of an odd number of taps. You never tapped your thumb, just your fingers, and the sound of that last tap bothered you. You could barely move yourself now, your arms slowly running cold as you saw your sight fade completely, but somehow you found one last ounce of strength in you to correct the wrong number of taps.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

The chaos around you came on quickly, and yet you couldn’t see a thing that was happening. All that you could tell was that there were people around you, their movements all quick and vague as you tried your best to stay aware of them.

You couldn’t feel anything anymore, the cold in your body having completely taken over your being, and your consciousness was fading quickly too. Your will was fading finally, the last bit of it being the only thing keeping you aware that anything was happening around you. That last shred of will kept you aware long enough to feel the warmth of a hand slide to the back of your neck and another to your cheek. The touch was so familiar, its warmth so needed as it remained on your cold skin.

If you were able to move yourself, you would’ve leant into the hand, would’ve grabbed onto it and kept it pressed firmly against you forever. The feeling of pressure on you kept you conscious for just a few seconds longer, the warmth of it radiating through you as the hand seemingly refused to remove itself from you as its thumb gently ran itself under your eye. You realized, in your last few seconds aware, that the hand on you was not something you needed, instead it was something that was more than a need.

You realized that there wasn’t something you wanted to _do_ before you die, but there was, in fact, something you had wanted to _have_ before you accepted you could die. It was that want that had fueled your despair from earlier you realized, and now that you had had a touch of what you wanted, you could feel the despair ebb away slowly as you faded to darkness.

Comfort. It was comfort from another person that you longed for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Might update this next week, might post another work, we'll see how this week goes for me ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


	9. The Changed Pace

It seemed like you were in darkness for an eternity, the blackness around you completely encapsulating all of your senses as time seemed to tick on. Yet, as it seemed that time went on forever as you sat in the dark, it also seemed to pass in a second, your senses slowly coming back to you as you tried to fight your way back into consciousness.

Your hearing was your first sense to return, and as the sounds around you began to fade into existence, the first noise you were able to notice was a steady, and repeating beeping. About every second that passed by you heard this beeping noise, and every second that passed you felt yourself grow a point more irritated at the noise, unsure of what it could be.

Your sense of smell came back next, and the scent of a sterile environment flooded your noise. It was overwhelming how strong the presence of how clean and germfree the area you were in was, but after only a few seconds did you realize that the smell of blood was no longer surrounding you. It was welcome that you were away from the overpowering scent of blood, but it was alarming that the change was so stark.

Your taste came back next, and you couldn’t taste anything as your tongue was too dry. This was almost a comfort, as your tongue felt exactly the same as when you had lost consciousness. You tried to wiggle your tongue a bit, hoping to dampen it once again, and to your surprise you were able to produce saliva, something you weren’t able to do when you were bound up due to your extreme dehydration.

Being able to move your tongue made you realize that you were able to feel everything once again, and as you thought about each of the different parts of your body, you felt the different sensations on them; there was a heavy weight on your feet, and it felt like you were wearing socks, your legs and part of your lower torso felt that same weight on them as well, and your upper torso felt like it had something thin on it that was barely touching your skin at all.

Your left arm had an odd and cool sensation to it, and there was a firm but soft tightness around your upper forearm. On your right arm there was the opposite feeling, a loose but hard feeling was present just below your elbow, and it felt like your skin was being held in place by something. Your head hurt still, with the gentle throbbing that pulsed with your heart, and your eye lids felt like they were glued shut with how heavy they were. As you felt the throbbing of your head, you realized that the beep you heard was in time with your heartbeat and panic began to overtake you.

A weight of fear began to swell in your chest, a heaviness that caused your lungs to quicken your short breaths for a few moments, but as you attempted to wiggle your fingers gently, a sharp pain shot through your left arm, causing you to inhale sharply and the beeping around you to quicken. The weight in your chest grew at the pain, and you struggled to release the breath you had in you because of the heft on your chest.

Your right hand came up and grasped at your chest, your fingers wrinkling into the thin sheet that you were wearing, and as you moved your arm you felt something drag along with it that tugged at what was holding your skin. It felt like you struggled to release your breath for minutes, the weight on your chest not letting up even as your hand grasped at it, but it was only a few seconds of distress that you felt before the familiar warmth and pressure of a hand was pressed against your shoulder.

You instantly were able to release your breath at the touch, your hand coming up quickly to grab at the hand was holding onto you as the mass of panic was relieved slightly. Your breathing remained rapid and erratic, but as you felt over the hand on you, the feel of leather over it, you tugged at the fabric. The hand moved hesitantly, and you lifted your hand a little to let it move. The hand returned a second later, now missing its leather glove, and as you felt the skin brush on your shoulder, you grabbed the hand and pressed it into the center of your chest.

You focused on the hand sitting over the weight in your chest, the mass of it a more welcome feeling than the panic that remained inside you. You struggled to slow your breathing, and with every quick breath you took, you would squeeze the hand lightly. The hand didn’t move, its warmth sitting on your chest with the minutes passing as you worked to slow your breathing. Before long, your breath was slowing down, your lungs finally able to take in more and more air with each inhale. When you were finally able to breath normally again, you purposely took deep breaths in to try to alleviate the lightheaded feeling that was threatening your consciousness.

You focused on your chest, the feeling of panic and heft slowly leaving as you took more deep breaths. It felt like hours had passed before you were able to be completely free of the previous feelings, but as you finally felt the last of the weight leave your chest, you realized that the hand on your chest had also left. You didn’t feel it leave, and you were confused as to when it could have left with how much attention you were giving to the many feelings on your chest.

The weight on your eye lids seemed to have disappeared with the panic in your chest, something else that confused you as you weren’t sure when they were relieved of the weight on them. Slowly you opened your eyes a little, allowing only a bit of the bright light in the area to shine through at first as you felt your head throb at the sudden intense brightness. Feeling the throbbing not subsiding at all despite waiting, you opened your eyes more, just enough to finally be able to see where you were as the pain continued through your head.

You were below a bright white ceiling, one that looked vaguely familiar, but one that had no extraordinary details that you could mark on it to point out where your familiarity came from. Glancing down, the stark whiteness of the rest of the room stood out to you as the walls, door, even the sheets that you laying on you were also white. Maybe it was to lighten the mood of the area, or maybe it was to show how clean everything was, but the lack of any other colour in the room was rather distressing to see.

Your eyes quickly caught sight of the only thing in the room that wasn’t painted bright white in your peripheral vision, and as your head lulled to the side in order for you to see what was to the side of you, you groaned at the dull stiffness in your neck. The room blurred as your head turned, a sight that caused a small bit of panic to flow through you, but as your head stopped moving, the blurring slowly faded and you were able to clearly see what the red blob was that was near you.

You felt yourself smile a little bit at the sight, Dante sitting up and sleeping in a chair near you, his jacket covering his body as his head leaned against the wall. You tried not to smile too much, but as your grin forced through, you realized just how good you felt physically.

Glancing down at your right arm slowly, you clenched your fist slowly as you waited for your vision to clear. As your sight returned to normal again, you looked upon the IV line in your arm, the needle taped down just below the bend of your elbow. You followed the line up to the bag that was hanging near you, and you wondered what was in it that could make you feel so good yet so disorientated at the same time. Whatever it was, it was working well, and you were grateful.

Turning your head to your other side, your eyes fell upon the sight of your upper forearm covered in a thick wrapping. You hesitantly tried to clench your fist, but as you felt the tension of your skin pull from under the gauze, you relaxed your hand and just continued to stare at the wraps. You hadn’t been able to see the wound before, and you wondered how far up it was on your arm as the entire area felt numb beneath the firmly secured wrappings.

Following the sound of beeping that was still bouncing around the room, you looked upon on the machine nearby that was displaying your heartrate and other information that didn’t make sense to you. Behind the screen you noticed a board with your name on it, and the date that your drink was supposed to be found on was just below other information about you.

Turning your head to the door that sat on the opposite side of the room, you stared at it for a moment as you thought about the room you were just in. The contrast of it to where you were now was frightening as the dark area was only being lit up by the small slits of light in the ceiling, and the room you were in now had much too many lights placed in the ceiling.

Your attention turned from the room to your body, and you slowly glanced over yourself. Everything felt good, a feeling of bliss slowly warming you. But there was something on you that was growing in pain, and as the beeping around you kept its steady pace, your felt your head throb which each high-pitched noise that pierced your ears. You wondered why you had a heartrate monitor attached to your body, unsure of its point as you felt yourself floating in post life bliss, your eyes slowly closing as you tried to ignore the noise.

A punch of realization hit you however, causing your eyes to fly open as your right hand quickly moved to the wrappings on your left arm and pressed gently down. Feeling the pain slide down your arm into your hand, the wave of bliss dissipated, and your disorientation cleared.

You thought it wasn’t possible, that there was no way you had made it out of that room, but as the pain continued to radiate down your arm and through the tips of your fingers, the realization that you had made, that you were truly and physically alive in a hospital room somewhere hit you again. Releasing your bandages and bringing your hand up to run through your hair, you felt your face crinkle at the feel of the grease coated hair that you felt.

Holding your hand out in front of you, you glanced over the IV line in you, and gulped. You wanted to bring your other hand up to the touch the spot where the needle went into your skin, a thought that made your skin crawl a bit, but once again you tried to move your left hand’s fingers only to be met with more pain. Deciding that it was best to leave that arm alone for now, you lowered your right arm back onto the bed as you slowly shuffled your head back against your pillow, a large sigh leaving you as you felt the pillow conform around your head.

The beeping sound of your heart rate monitor continued on, and it made you think of what had just happened, or rather, what you thought had just happened. As you glanced over to Dante again, you felt confused, unsure of whose hand had pressed on your chest just a few minutes ago. With how soundly the man was resting, you felt like there was no way it could have been his hand that you had clung to. And yet, the hand that you had felt was one that so familiar to you, one that you were sure you had previously felt.

You weren’t one for wanting human contact, especially recently as most of the time when someone would touch you in passing, you’d feel your skin crawl in disgust at the feel, so you knew there were only so many hands that could’ve felt familiar to you. As you glanced over Dante, you wondered how long he had been asleep for, and if this was the first bit of sleep he had gotten in a while.

His face looked much more relaxed than it had since the last time you saw him, his eyebrows no longer furrowed close together and his mouth no longer pulled tight. Now he was just sleeping, all parts of his face relaxed, and as he laid his head against the wall, his shoulder was propped up and pushing on his neck that made his cheek smoosh a little. 

Dante’s hair was sitting in front of his face, and something that was bothering you was that every time he’d breathe out, a small lock of his hair would be moved by his breath only to fall right back in front of his face again. This repeated a few times before you looked away and over to your heart rate monitor. You weren’t sure what half of the information on the screen was for, but it seemed like you were doing alright by your judgement of the numbers on the faded screen.

Slowly you pressed your right arm down onto the soft covers and began to raise yourself. Feeling the pain your left arm begin, you carefully lifted your whole arm onto the bed guard and let it rest there until you were able to pull yourself up fully. It took a lot of core strength that you didn’t know you had to pull yourself to sitting, but once you finally were risen, you sighed in relief. You glanced over to Dante, wondering how much noise you were making as you sat up. It felt like you were making a bunch of noise as many different curses spilt out of you at the sudden strain, but it appeared that none of them had disturbed the man. You assumed the man was really in desperate need for some deeps sleep if he wasn’t awoken but your odd noises.

As your head remained vertical, you felt the way of fuzziness you felt before flow over you, and slowly the world in front of you began to blur as your disorientation returned.

You looked at the clock that was nearby and waited for a minute to pass before you slowly drug the blanket that was over you to the side and let it hang off of the edge of the bed. You slid one leg across the bed and placed it on the floor, pausing as you felt the cold seep through your socks. Repeating your action with your other leg, you let both of your feet sit on the floor for another minute as you waited for the floor to stop shifting in a blur under you.

Once you felt more stable with your sight, you slowly slid yourself to the edge of the bed and began to press your weight onto your feet. There was a dull ache inside your legs, one that was replaced with a pleasant numbness quickly after it began by whatever medicine you were being given, and as you felt the wave of bliss wash over your legs, you grabbed onto the guard rail next to you to help keep you up. Your legs were wobbly, and your hand felt like it was barely holding onto the cold metal despite you trying your hardest to hold on tightly, but still you remained standing next to your bed.

The world spun around you as you wobbled next to your bed, and you waited for it to mostly clear before you began to move again. Once you were able to see the pieces of hair that were swaying back and forth on Dante, you slowly slid one of your feet closer to the man. Once your foot was what you deemed close enough to Dante, you repeated your action and slid your other foot closer, your torso turning a bit so that you were leaning toward the hospital bed as your hand remained on the guard rail.

You swayed in place for a moment as you tried to gather strength in your arm, your will trying to push away the numbness that was collected in your fingertips. Pushing on the rail with the little strength you could gather, you rose to standing up right, your body quickly turning so that your arm could press into the wall nearby to stabilize you.

The world spun wildly as you tried to stay standing in place, and you felt you stomach turn a bit as it felt like you were falling down. Slowly your vision started to return to normal, and it was as everything came back into view that you noticed that your fingers were curled, and your nails were digging into the paint in the wall. Waiting until you felt comfortable enough to stay standing with your vision almost completely back to normal, you slowly and hesitantly lifted your hand from the wall. You let your hand hover near the wall for a minute, and as you slowly pulled your hand away more, you let your head turned to look at Dante.

The man was still sleeping, and now that you were close enough to him, you could hear the soft snoring he was making. You smiled small for a second before your grin turned large and your hand slowly moved toward the sleeping man’s face. You locked your eyes on the hair that was still moving over Dante’s face, and as your hand got closer to it, you noticed that you were shaking.

You focused on only your hand, hoping to will away the shaking just long enough so that you could move the hair without disturbing the man. You hooked your finger under the hair, and slowly slid your finger up to Dante’s hairline as you tried to curl the hair back. Watching the hair fall away from your finger, you sighed lightly. Trying again, the hair once again slid away from your finger as you attempted to tuck it back, and again you sighed.

Giving up on being gentle, you slowly pushed your finger under the pieces of hair one more time, and as your hand slid up toward Dante’s hairline again, you opened all your fingers and gently pushed them all through the man’s hair. You hummed lightly as you felt the soft pieces of hair flow between your fingers, and as your hand finally placed the stray pieces back in place, you couldn’t stop yourself from repeating your actions and running your hand through Dante’s hair once more. And then twice more. You continued to hum as you combed your fingers through the white hair slowed your hand down more each time you began to brush through Dante’s hair again. His hair was a little bit greasy, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as how yours felt so it was a pleasant feeling.

A couple of minutes passed before you were satisfied that the man’s hair wouldn’t fall into his face anymore, and as you lowered your hand down, you turned your head toward the clock. It read just past noon, and you wondered what day it was now and how long you had been unconscious for. Turning your attention down to your legs, you noted that they no longer felt numb, and their normal feeling had returned. You felt better knowing that your legs were probably not going to give out suddenly, and you slowly tensed and untensed them to revel in the feeling of stiffness leaving them as you remained standing.

Spinning back around to face Dante, your eyes met another pair, something that caught you off guard and caused you to let out a noise of surprise. You sputtered out noises at the man as his hand slowly raised up and ran through his hair, and as his hand fell back down, you felt your face flush red.

His eyes remained on yours, and as you continued to make noises at him, your legs began to feel like they were floating again. Being torn between falling into the bed railing behind you or falling into the wall in front of you, you quickly brought your hand up and grasped onto Dante’s shoulder, making the worst decision in the split second you had.

Dante’s hand met yours quickly, and it laid over yours firmly as his other hand came up toward you. You pressed down on his shoulder, your fingers clenching tightly down as you tried to keep yourself from falling over as his hand found its way to your side, it resting gently against you. You finally stopped sputtering at the feel of pressure against your side, your face feeling completely hot as your mouth hung open for a second.

Your eyes never left Dante’s however, and as he shifted in his seat to allow you to more easily keep yourself from falling over, you saw his face shift between a variety of emotions. You had first seen what you thought was confusion, which had changed to something that caused his eyebrows to furrow in but as your focus was more on trying not to fall again, you weren’t able to exactly tell what expression the man was wearing. Now, as his coat slid down him as he moved, he face changed to one of annoyance and you hoped that his face of displeasure was caused by his jacket moving and not you.

Dante’s mouth twitched a bit as his eyes remained on yours, and you wondered if he was going to say something to you. A small part of you wished he would just so this moment would end and you could move past it, but the larger part of you wished you hadn’t even gotten up from your bed so you could have avoided the awkwardness that was hanging between you and Dante.

You thought about just letting your hand go and falling over, wondering if you’d be able to knock yourself out on something during your fall down to avoid having to say something to the man who was still staring at you, his eyes completely full of an emotion you couldn’t decipher. You knew you’d probably survive if you fell right now, as the floor wasn’t that far away, but you weren’t sure how much blood you had lost from your cut and how long it had been since you had been brought to the hospital. Uncertain on if your escape plan was foolproof, you pulled yourself away from the very tempting idea to think of another thing to do in the situation.

As you felt your mouth move a little, your brain unsure of what was even going to come out of you, you were cut off, a booming voice on the other side of the room echoing in the room suddenly. You and Dante both turned quickly, your eyes meeting a rather angry looking person by the doorway of the room, their arms crossed tightly over their chest as they stood and looked directly at you. You froze in place at their sight, your hand clenching impossibly tight on Dante at the view of the angry nurse.

The nurse commanded you to get back in bed, their voice booming again as they made their way over to you. It took your brain a second to process what they had said, but as soon as their words made sense to you, you stuttered out an affirmation as you quickly snatched your hand away from Dante’s and tried to turn yourself around to face your bed.

The person was fast, however, and before you could even turn around halfway, their hands were on you and guiding you to the edge of the bed. They were surprisingly gentle for how intense their voice was, and as they helped you take your few shaky steps back toward the bed’s edge, you noted their gentleness in helping you. Their hands and movements were firm, confident as they guided you to slide onto the mattress, and your discomfort that stemmed from them surprising you quickly faded as they pulled the blanket form over the guard and back onto your lower body.

You learned that this nurse’s name was Terry from the name stitched into her scrubs, and she told you she was the one that was going to be taking care of you until you were discharged as she fluffed your pillow gently for you. As soon as you had settled on the bed, Terry began to explain to you what was going on with you, and as she listed off all the things that had been done to your arm, you found yourself lost in her medical wording as she kept talking.

Not wanting to interrupt her as she spoke and checked on your IV drip line to make sure that you hadn’t messed anything up when you had gotten up, you waited patiently for an opening in between her sentences to ask her to repeat what she had said to you. But Terry was quite chatty, and you found it hard to find a space that you felt okay to interrupt and so you kept your focus on length of each of her sentences in hopes of finding a spot to ask your question. As you tried to read Terry’s sentences and facial expressions to find a moment, you found yourself missing many of the details she was saying, your attention not really on what she was saying anymore as you tried your hardest to find an appropriate place to interrupt. You hoped that Dante was listening so that he could repeat to you anything you missed, but you knew that he was probably just as lost as you were to your nurse’s ramblings.

“You look lost, do you have any questions?” Terry asked suddenly, pulling you from your focus on her sentences. You sputtered out a sound as your attention shifted, and you turned your head a bit to glance at Dante. His expression probably mirrored your own, his face showing his complete loss at all the complex words that were being thrown around. You sighed a little, knowing that the man was no help right now.

“I uh…Can you repeat…like, everything?” you muttered quietly, a bit embarrassed.

“Don’t worry,” Terry said, a small chuckle coming from her as she placed her hands on her sides. “The doctor will explain everything again in a bit. I’ll go let her know you’re awake now.” Watching as Terry turned away from you and make her way toward the door, you called out a ‘thanks’ to her before you turned to face Dante, his eyes following the nurse as she left.

Only a moment after Terry had left the room did Dante turn back to you, and your eyes met once again. You quickly looked away, however, and pretended to look over the nearby monitor screen again. You tried to look like you were fascinated by the screen despite Dante not being able to see your face, the numbers on it suddenly completely enticing as you glanced over them knowing not what any of them meant besides your heart rate graph. It was only when you heard a sigh that you hesitantly turned back around, your head and shoulder slumping forward a bit as you reluctantly met Dante’s unapproving eyes again.

“I’m sure Morrison will be here at some point, so before he gets here to ask all the nitty-gritty questions,” Dante started, his elbow resting on the couch’s armrest as his face rested gently on his clenched first, “I need to ask you something.”

“…yeah?” you said quietly, your head leaning forward a bit more as you awaited an angry question.

“…You’ve been around Lady, Trish, and I long enough, hell, you’ve seen it in person yourself, so you know what demons are capable of,” Dante began. “And yet you went in anyway and gave yourself to a murderous psychopath. I just can’t understand why you’d go and do that.”

Hearing Dante ask you ‘why’ made you stop for a moment, your brain reeling back through the memories you had. Why had you gone to be kidnapped by a murderer in the first place? The first memories that came forward were of you laying on the old ground, your body close to freezing as you bled out on the floor while you thought about what you had wanted in life. The feeling of dread hit you for a second as you thought about the immeasurable amount of time you had spent feeling that dread as your body was taken over by an unnatural feeling of cold. 

But you pulled yourself back from that feeling, from those terrible thoughts you had had, and pushed backwards through your memories. You remembered the annoyance you had felt when you had first seen the murderous man descend from the ceiling, no dread or feeling of emptiness in you once he showed his face. You remembered the nervousness and anxiety you felt when you thought you had no other options at the bar when the bartender didn’t identify the person in the picture for you. Again, no feeling of dread or emptiness present at the time.

Turning your head away from Dante, you relaxed your shoulders and lifted your head up a bit, your eyes falling over the door to the room as you remembered how you felt the moment you stepped out of Devil May Cry so many days ago. You began to tap on the guard rail to your right, trying to find a consistent pattern as you tried to think of how to word and explain exactly why you had gone and done something to reckless to Dante.

“Well, I…” you began, your eyes turning just a bit to glance toward Dante, “I went for the same reason you would have. Cause I cared at the time. N-Not that I don’t care now, that’s not what I mean…” Feeling yourself about to sputter off into nonsense, you halted your tapping and brought your hand up through you hair, slowly combing it to the side as you took a moment to find better words. You sighed a little and put your hand down to tap again to the same rhythm you had found before before you continued, “I-I meant, when I left your store, I just didn’t want anyone else to get hurt. That’s why I went.”

“…That’s the reason why?” Dante asked, his tone unreadable for what he was expressing. You turned and looked at him, hoping to see what he was feeling on his face. His expression, however, told you nothing and you gulped.

“Y-Yeah?” You hesitantly affirmed. “I-Isn’t that why you do what you do?” you asked quickly. “I-I mean, you have to care to go after someone evil, right? I just didn’t want someone else to get hurt; that’s what was going through my head at the time. When I found out what that guy was using to plan where he was going to place all those drinks, I knew I could use myself in his plan. I knew there was a chance that what I had planned out wouldn’t work, but I…that’s not what I was thinking when I went out to find this guy.”

Sitting for a second, you turned fully and looked over Dante as he looked over you, his expression still not changing. Your expression, however, seemed to tell the man everything he needed to know as he looked toward the door after a few seconds, a small scoff coming from his smirking lips. You felt your eyebrows furrow at the sight, and you ceased your tapping and waited.

“I knew you were troublesome when we first met and you told me you had pissed off that fat snake by insulting it, and I thought you would’ve tried to tone it down after everything that’s happened,” Dante said, his unclenched hand coming up to run through his hair slowly before he continued, “But it seems you’re just as fearlessly stupid as you were half a year ago, huh?” Seeing the smile on the man’s face, you couldn’t help but smile a bit in return.

“Don’t give me that,” you replied as you slowly adjusted the blanket on your legs, “You love my stupidity; you wouldn’t have me any other way!” Hearing the shift in your tone to one that was much lighter, Dante chuckled a bit, his eyes catching yours as he glanced to the side. You grinned a bit, and you felt yourself flush a bit at the man’s low laugh.

A couple of minutes passed in silence, Dante keeping his eyes toward the door to your room and you adjusting your blanket for a bit before finally leaving it alone. You slowly felt the warm bliss from whatever was going into your arm slowly take you over, the feeling of nervousness finally fading away. You let your eyes wander around the room for a bit, looking at all the things that were present near you, from the little wash station that sat near the entrance to the folding door that probably lead to the bathroom.

Your mind thought about the cleanliness of the room as you looked over everything, and you soon found yourself wondering when your doctor would be coming in to talk to you. It had been a bit of time since your nurse had left, and you couldn’t imagine your doctor would take very long to come see you if she had been waiting for you to wake up.

Turning to look at Dante for a moment, it seemed that he was also looking around the room and inspecting all the things near him as well. You glanced at the monitor on your opposite side for a second, counting the beeps for a few moments before you turned back to Dante, a thought coming back into your mind suddenly.

“Hey, Dante,” you called out. You watched the man turn a bit to look at you before you continued, “You never explained to me why your store was so clean when I came to visit last time.” Dante’s expression changed after you finished speaking, his eyebrows furrowing but not in an angry way, and he turned himself away from looking at you.

“Well, it’s because…” the man began after a few moments, “I mean, you can never go wrong with pizza,” he stated simply. A few moments passed and you felt a bit confused by his response, but only a few more moments passed before Dante spoke again. “And, besides that, you seemed really adamant about keeping the store clean. If the store wasn’t much of a mess when you came around, well, then I wasn’t sure you’d have much reason to stay so long at the store,” the man said, his shoulders rising up a bit. Feeling the corners of your lips tug a little bit, and feeling your face flush a little bit, you paused a second.

“Oh, well, I mean…” you started, pausing a second as you felt yourself ready to ramble on about nonsense, but as you felt the numbing of the medicine in your arm, you continued to speak on, “I-I do have a reason to stay at the store all day, so you don’t have to go and eat 20 pizzas and make a mess just to keep me around every week. I-I mean, you can keep doing that; you’re an adult so I can’t stop you from doing that... B-But really, I have a reason to stay around the store every week, I don’t enjoy cleaning so much that that’s the only reason I come back week after week. Really, the-the reason I keep coming back is-is cause of-of y--” hearing a sudden knock near you, you turned your head quickly to see the source of the sound. With your eyes away from Dante, and his hand still pressing into his check, you weren’t able to see the very faint hint of colour that had appeared on his face as your eyes were met with the sight of your nurse coming into your room with your doctor.


	10. The Different Feel

“The numbness may take some time to fade away, but overall I’m happy with how well everything is healing.”

“That doesn’t mean go and poke at your hand or try to move it though. It isn’t that well yet.”

“Oh, right. Sorry.” Withdrawing your good hand from your injured arm, you gave a shy smile to your nurse, Terry, before you turned your attention back to your doctor, who had introduced herself as Dr. Frostla, as she explained everything that had been done to your arm since you were admitted to the hospital. You gently grasped onto the bed rail next to you, tapping it with your fingers as you tried to keep your attention on what your doctor was saying.

“Once the numbness goes away, you may have some trouble moving your hand, and your arm is going to be very sore as your brachioradialis muscle heals. I don’t believe you’ll have permanent nerve damage, but that’ll depend on if your median nerve heals well. Take it easy grabbing things for a while.” Looking down at your hand, you wanted to clench your fingers into a fist to test your feeling in it, but as you felt Terry’s eyes on you, you returned your eyes back to your doctor. “Your cephalic vein into the median cephalic vein were where almost all of your bleeding was originating from, and you’re very lucky that none of your arteries were cut into. I don’t think you’d be doing so well if that were the case.

“You should be good enough to leave the hospital in a few days, assuming your lab work continues to come back with normal values.” Hearing your doctor finish talking, you nodded at her, still a bit lost at her terminology. “Any questions?”

“I…don’t think so?” You hesitantly replied.

“We have this call button here for you,” Terry said, and as you looked at her, you saw the place she was pointing at that had a large button labelled “Nurse Call” before she continued, “Use it if you need anything between my visits, alright?”

“Understood.” Terry and your doctor then left, and as they disappeared beyond the door frame to your room, you sighed a bit.

“What’s up, babe?” Turning your head and looking at Dante, you chuckled a bit at the confused look he was giving you.

“Nothing, just wish I could leave today,” You replied. “I don’t really like hospitals much.”

“Does anyone?” Dante said, a small chuckle coming from him. “Considering how much blood you lost, I’m almost surprised they’re already talking about letting you leave. For someone who weighs close to nothing, you sure did have a lot of blood coming out of you.”

“O-Oh, right. You were there, weren’t you?” Tilting your head a bit, you thought back to the foggy memories of when you were laying on the ground. You remembered the cold of the ground as the most clear thing in your memory, but as you tried to remember more and more details, more of the memory became hazy. But one detail was still completely clear to you, and it was the sudden warmth that you had felt not long before you had woken up in the hospital.

Bringing your good hand up to your face, your gently pressed your palm to your cheek and left it there. Seeing the strange look Dante was giving you, you couldn’t help but chuckle a bit.

“Are those drugs they’re giving you too strong? I’ll make sure to have your nurse turn down the dosage next time she’s in.” Dante said as you brought your hand off your face.

“No, it’s not that,” You said. “Though I am feeling pretty good right now.” Glancing down at your IV, you remembered that you wanted to ask what exactly you were being given. “I was just remembering something.”

“Well, seems my timing is perfect then.” Hearing the deep voice nearby, you turned and were met with the sight of Morrison, and as he stepped into your room, his hand going up to remove his hat, he nodded at you and Dante. Dante greeted the man, and Morrison greeted him back. “Have you left at all Dante? It’s been 2 whole days, aren’t you worried about the store?”

“Nah, Trish can handle anything that comes in while I’m gone,” Dante replied as he waved his hand a bit.

“I was out for 2 days?” you asked. Seeing Dante turn to you and nod, you hummed a bit as you were content as some of the questions you had in mind were slowly being answered the longer you remained awake.

“You’ve had Dante worried the entire time, and I don’t think I’ve seen him move the entire time.” Morrison said, a small chuckle coming from him. Seeing Dante glare at the man, you smiled a bit. Morrison ignored the glare and his attention turned completely to you. “How are you feeling now that you’ve woken up?”

“Not terrible actually. I’m feeling pretty good right now,” You replied as your smile grew a bit bigger. “Might help that they’re pumping something good into me.”

“That’s good. You were in pretty bad shape when we found you, so it’s good to hear you’re doing well. Do you think you’re well enough to answer a few questions?” Morrison sat himself down next to Dante, and he placed his hat on his lap as he looked at you. Seeing Dante shift a bit, you looked at him before you turned back to Morrison.

“Can’t questions wait til tomorrow?” Dante said at Morrison.

“They could, but I’m trying to wrap up this case quickly, and the city’s breathing down my neck about this.” Morrison replied, his shoulders coming up a bit.

“Well, tell the city to scr—”

“I can answer questions today, I don’t mind,” you said, quickly cutting off Dante. He looked at you, and you smiled a bit. “I’ve got nothing else to do, so I don’t mind.” Shifting a bit in place, you looked at Morrison who was watching you. Seeing the man nod, he pulled out a small pad of paper from his coat pocket along with a fancy pen.

You found it hard to answer some of Morrison’s questions, not only because of how fuzzy your memory was, but also because you didn’t want to recall some of the specific details of your stay in the dark room. You knew you needed to recall the memories though, and you tried to force yourself to answer the man, hoping it would be the only time anyone would be asking you about your captivity.

He had you start at the beginning, when you were back at Devil May Cry after Dante had left. You filled him in on what you had done to figure out the coordinates correlation between the victims, the whole time forgetting specific details about all the victims as you spoke. Despite your vague details about the victims, Morrison seemed to understand what you were explaining, and he nodded every so often as you spoke. You apologized to Morrison in the middle of your explanation, and the man became very confused.

“D-Dante had mentioned that I probably shouldn’t be allowed to look at the files, but I didn’t really…try to stop myself from reading them,” you explained, your face flushing a bit.

“Oh, I see. Yeah, those were technically classified files but… I’ll just put that you were working for Dante during this case,” Morrison said, a small chuckle coming from him as he wrote down something. Smiling a bit, you continued on with your story, going on to tell Morrison, and passively Dante too, about what you could remember from the bar you went to visit. You could tell Dante became more interested in your story as you went on about the people in the bar as his face changed from a neutral expression to one of focus as you spoke.

As you went on through your adventure getting into the bar and then your hazy memory of leaving the bar, Dante’s expression never changed, and it was almost unnerving to see how interested he was in what you were saying.

Pausing your story after you recollected the last bits of your consciousness near the bar, you tapped your fingers on the guard rail nearby as Morrison wrote more things on his pad of paper. He had turned the pages a few times as you spoke, and you wondered what all he was writing down exactly. When he stopped writing finally, you started to tell him about your stay in the dark room after you had woken up.

During your recollection, Dante stood up from his spot and took a couple of steps toward you. Confused, you watched him as he moved, but kept going on with your story. Feeling his hand press down into your shoulder gently, you were surprised at the tension you felt in yourself, unsure of when you had become so hunched forward and tense. Rolling your shoulder a bit at the pressure, you tried to relax, but were only able to do so as Dante’s fingers pressed down into you, his thumb sliding over your shoulder blade and digging into it.

You leaned into the touch, reveling in the feeling of another’s contact as you struggled to find your words for a moment, the pressure in your shoulder blade exactly what you needed to relax. You stuttered out your words as you tried to continue on with your story to Morrison, and you could practically hear Dante’s smirk as he kept digging his fingers into you.

Feeling Dante’s other hand meet your other shoulder, you felt your face flush a bit as he mirrored the movements of his other hand. You found it was easier to tell Morrison about your time in the dark room with the physical contact from the man helping you along.

Nearing the end of the story, you found yourself struggling to form words as you tried to describe how you ended up on the floor, the images of the colour of your blood lingering in your mind as you recalled that day. Bringing your hand up and gently place it on one of Dante’s, you paused for a moment and sighed loudly. At the sound of your sigh, Dante stopped, his one hand moving under yours a bit. Feeling the shift, you wondered what he was doing until you felt a finger pushing on yours. Relaxing your hand and allowing your fingers to part, you felt Dante’s fingers intertwin with yours slowly.

Feeling your face grow hot, you sputtered out a few noises before you quickly started retelling your story again. It was difficult to recall all of the details near the end of your story, the details you were saying becoming more vague and more generic as you went on. You felt almost overwhelmed with anxiety as you spoke, but as you finished up and looked at Morrison, a flush of relief hit you as you waited for the man to finish writing.

He continued on for another minute or so, and as you waited, you grew more curious about what he was writing. Glancing behind you, you noticed you weren’t the only one who was curious, and you couldn’t help but chuckle a bit as Dante leaned his head up to peak at the pad of paper. When Morrison clicked his pen closed, Dante quickly ducked back down, and you turned your eyes to the other man.

“Alright, I think that’s all I need today then,” Morrison said, his hand coming down to grab his hat. As he slowly stood up, he placed his hat on his head, and shifted his pad of paper and pen back into his coat pocket. “Should I need any more information, am I free to come visit again?”

“Oh, absolutely!” you said, smiling a bit.

“Hey, before you leave,” Dante said suddenly. Feeling his hands leave your shoulder, you couldn’t help but pout a bit feeling the warmth suddenly gone. “Can I borrow your phone?”

“My phone?” Morrison handed Dante his phone, and Dante flipped it open, slowly dialing an unknown number. You and Morrison watched curiously as the man waited for the person on the other end.

“Hey, it’s me.” Dante said once the person picked up. You tried to hear what the person was saying to Dante, but you were unable to hear anything. “Nah, not to the store, it’ll be to the city hospital. Yeah. Room uh…304.” Blinking a view times, you wondered who Dante was talking to as he handed the phone back to Morrison. Morrison was just as confused, but also didn’t ask any questions before he waved and signaled his leave.

Watching the man leave the door, you turned and looked at Dante, your face full of confusion. He simply waved you off as he crossed his arms over his chest and sat down again. Slowly laying yourself back down, you couldn’t help but pout and feel a bit of anxiety as you wondered who would be coming to visit your room.

A few minutes passed in silence and you felt your eyes grow heavy as you stared at the ceiling. Turning your head a bit, you looked over at Dante, who had pulled a magazine from somewhere and was now reading it. You couldn’t help but roll your eyes at the type of magazine the man had, and you turned your eyes back to the ceiling again.

“Delivery!” Hearing the new voice, your head shot up and you met eyes with one of delivery drivers from the nearby pizza place that Dante frequented. You sat up quickly, grunting as your arm throbbed a bit at the movement, and you glared at Dante as he closed his book.

“What? I’m starving!” Dante protested as he saw your look at him. He stood up and walked over the delivery person as he placed his magazine into his jacket.

“It’ll be—” the person started.

“Oh shit, right.” Dante muttered, slowly patting his pockets on his jacket. “Hey, do you have any cash on you?” The man asked as he turned to you.

“I don’t even know where my wallet is!” You exclaimed, a bit surprised at Dante’s audacity to ask you for cash for his food. Dante chuckled a bit and turned back to the delivery person, slowly reaching for the box of pizza.

“Just…put it on my tab, alright?” Dante tried, carefully removing the box from the person’s gripped. The person rolled their eyes, and they turned away quickly as soon as Dante had the pizza in his hands. The man was beaming as he returned to his seat and sat down, and you couldn’t help your mouth watering at the smell of all the toppings on the pizza.

“You…You’re gonna share, right?” You asked, slowly reaching over the guard rail to the box.

“Oh, I’m sorry, are you hungry too?” Dante teased, slowly lifting the lid of the box and letting the smell float around the room.

“Yes, asshole! I haven’t eaten in like a week!” Feeling a small, gentle slap on your hand, you pouted more as you retracted your hand. Seeing Dante reach into the box and pull out a slice of pizza that had cheese still connected to the other pieces as it was lifted, you couldn’t help but gulp at the sight. Once the stretched cheese disconnected itself, you watched as the end of the cheese made its way closer to Dante’s mouth, and as he slowly lowered the pizza in, you whined a bit.

“Oh my god, you’re pathetic!” Hearing a laugh come from the man, he bit down on the pizza slice in his mouth and grabbed another slice from the box. “Here. Open up!” Leaning over and reaching the pizza toward you, you grinned at the man as you ducked down a bit and caught the hanging cheese from the slice in Dante’s hand. He lowered the piece a bit, and you leaned up to grab the remainder of the piece, you humming happily as you clamped down on the end of it.

Dante continued to laugh as he let go of the piece and you returned to fully sitting up, your hand coming up to pull the pizza from your mouth as you chewed. You thanked the man before you took your next bite, and you let the taste of pizza sit on your tongue as it tasted better than it ever had before.

“It feels like it’s been so long since I ate last,” you said suddenly.

“What, you didn’t get fed during your stay in that asshole’s basement?” Dante snarked at you before he put another piece of pizza in his mouth.

“No, no complementary breakfast or anything. Just a…really moldy, evil pillow,” You replied, mirroring Dante’s action.

“A what?”

“D-Don’t worry about it.” Waving your hand that held your pizza a bit, you continued to eat in silence with Dante. You managed to snag another slice from the man before he finished off the remainder of the box by himself, and you probably would’ve been impressed at how much food the man could pack away if you hadn’t seen him do the same thing at least 100 times before.

There wasn’t much to do in the hospital besides talk to Dante the whole time you were admitted, and you thought it was kind of odd that it seemed like the man never left, even when you would doze off randomly. It was pleasant to have company while you were waiting to be released, however, and he kept a steady supply of pizza coming into the hospital, much to your nurse’s, and the delivery person’s, distain.

You made Dante keep the room clean however, and any time there was a box of pizza, you made him take it out of your room and to the hallway trashcan to ensure it would properly disposed of and not just sit in the corner of your room molding and smelling up everything.

The day after you had awoken from your deep sleep, Lady and Trish came to visit, and it was pleasant surprise to see them just after you had woken up from another nap. You had greeted them enthusiastically, happy that you had more company than Dante and his lewd magazines.

They didn’t stay long as Trish was only stopping by to bring Dante more magazines and some DVD’s he had requested, and Lady wanted to stop by on her way to her next job to make sure you were well. As she sat on the edge of the bed and chatted with you, Trish sat near Dante and updated him on what had happened at the store. It didn’t take long for her to fill him in, as nothing had happened except Morrison stopping by to collect rent, something that made Dante groan a bit, but after she finished talking, the two turned their attention to you and Lady conversing about your health.

Lady seemed very concerned for you, asking all sorts of questions from how you were feeling to what the doctors were planning on giving you when you left. You were happy to answer all of her questions, and it felt nice to have someone to talk with who seemed to understand the medical terms the doctor had spewed at you. Lady was adamant that you follow your doctor’s orders to not move your arm at all while it recovered, and she even threated to cuff your arm down should you choose to ignore her and your doctor. Dante, being who he was, couldn’t stop himself from commenting on the kinky nature of Lady’s threat, but he was quickly silenced and his arms were thrown up in surrender by Lady’s next threat of sending the man to hell should he feel the need to comment further.

It was just as Lady and Trish were leaving that Alecz found their way into your room. You lit up when you saw them, and their face softened from deeply concerned as they saw you flailing about in your hospital bed, quite annoyed that you were being told by everyone to not move. They let you complain to them about being forced to stay in the hospital for a few more days, and they couldn’t help but laugh a bit as you rambled on about how terribly boring it was being forced to remain seated and unmoving for a significant chunk of the day.

Alecz told you about how your Boss had stopped by the day that you had gone missing, wondering where his ‘best employee’ was, something you couldn’t help but scoff at. As they told you about what your Boss had said to them, you couldn’t help but feel a tinge of sadness at the story, and it took you a second to realize that the world had still gone on even after you had been taken. You hadn’t accounted for what was going to happen to the people around you when you were gone, only yourself and the culprit for the little bit of time you’d be around them, and you apologized to Alecz in the middle of their retelling.

They gave you a soft but sad smile, and merely shook their head at you before they finished up their story. You caught eyes with Dante during the last parts of Alecz’s story, and you couldn’t tell what emotion the man had behind his eyes in the moment. You noted to yourself that you wanted to ask him what was on his mind the next time you were able to.

Alecz had brought you a bag of clothes and books, and it was a delight to have something else to read besides Dante’s horribly edited magazines that were much too terribly lewd. You wondered how the man could bring them around with him everywhere and just openly read them with how embarrassing they were to even look at. It was just after Alecz had gotten up and left after they told you they were going to update your Boss on your condition that you thought it was the best time to talk to Dante.

“Hey, Dante,” you called out to him, trying to bring his attention away from his booklet to you. He merely lowered his book a bit and kept his eyes on it, however.

“What’s up, babe?”

“What…did you do in between the days I was gone?” you asked. The man’s eyes lifted up ahead of him and he looked at something unspecific in front of him as you waited for him to speak. For a few moments you weren’t sure he was going to speak, but as he closed his magazine and set it down, a small sigh coming from him, you kept on waiting.

“Let’s see…I tracked in mud all over the floor, got day drunk and tracked more mud all over the floor, made a sand pit on the floo—”

“Dante, I’m serious,” you interrupted. “And I’m gonna let Lady send you to hell if that floor is ruined.” Seeing the man shrug at you, you slumped forward a bit and sighed.

“What? What’s that face for?” Dante asked as he leaned back in his seat.

“It was a serious question, and I just… was wandering what happened while I was gone,” you admitted. Seeing Dante’s eyebrows furrow a bit, you looked away from him for a second to see a person pass by your room.

“I just…kept working on the case.” Dante said after a few moments. You returned your eyes back to him and lifted your head up a bit. “I worked with Morrison and his team on a plan of attack and got ready to kill the demon that took you. I was still going out on days to try to find clues, but it was basically a waiting game after we had a plan made out.”

“K-Kill him?” you stuttered out.

“Yeah, kill. There was no way I was going to let someone so dangerous have any chance of escape,” Dante said, a bit too casually you felt. You paused for a moment and thought about the man who had held you captive. It felt weird to think about how he was no longer alive, but at the same time you were relieved. You thought it was horrible that you were relieved that someone was dead, but you felt that it was justified to be relieved given all the things the man did.

“…What, exactly…happened before you ki…found me?” You asked quietly.

“Well, we started the day waiting near the coordinates you left,” Dante began to explain.

“We?”

“When he finally showed up, I followed him home and Morrison had your mix drink taken to the lab to confirm it was yours. I guess he needed to do it because it’s protocol to send everything to the lab for a case, even though we knew for sure that it was going to have your blood in it.” Hearing Dante speak, you couldn’t help but stick your tongue out at the thought of what your mix drink could have in it, but the curiosity in you rose up.

“What…was in my drink?” you asked quietly.

“You really want to know?” Dante questioned, his eyebrow raising a bit. You merely shrugged and kept looking at the man. “I mean, everything was the same as before, honey and milk, I think? Your drink had tequila in it though.”

“Eugh, why tequila…?” Tightening your lips a bit, you stared at Dante for a second, and the man gave you an amused look. “Oh, uh…sorry, keep going.”

“So, I followed the guy home,” Dante continued. “Morrison looked up any information on the guy and found him in the system. Had an association with a fire many years ago on a case that never got solved. I think Morrison said the guy was just a kid back then, and he was playing a witness. In hindsight, it seems like he was the culprit.”

“What makes you say that?” you questioned, a bit confused on how someone could go from being a petty arsonist to a full-blown serial killer.

“I’m getting there, if you’d stop interrupting me,” Dante snarked, a small smirk on his face. Bringing your hand up quickly, you covered your mouth and stared intently at the man. He only blinked a few times in response at your action before he started on his tale again, saying “I broke into his house, obviously, and boy was he pissed that I had followed him.

I tried to take him down quickly, but he was surprisingly sturdy in his human form. When he changed to his demon form, well, you remember big and ugly from before?” you nodded at Dante, really hoping that one day you could forget the horrible look of the large snake that haunted your dreams. “If you thought he was ugly, this guy was at least 10 times as ugly. He was all charred over, smelt and looked like a burnt sausage. I spent half the fight with him trying to keep my lunch down.” Dante said, his hand waving in front of his face a bit, something you couldn’t help but giggle a bit at.

“But, as I said before, he was probably the cause of the unsolved fire case since he was just a big fire snake. The last snake demon was probably a water element snake or something, which is probably why it ran away into the river when I fought it, and why it seemed to be hanging around that area near your place so much.” Dante explained as he crossed his arms over his chest.

Pulling your hand down from your mouth, determined to keep it shut, you merely hummed as you thought back to the first snake demon and how moldy he was when you were able to see him under the lights of the park. You couldn’t ever forget the strike of fear that had hit you the day you had met Dante when you thought the demon was going to arise from the river after it had fled. What Dante was saying made sense, as you had encountered the demon so close to your house both times you had met it, and it probably needed an easy escape were a demon hunter to show up to fight him. Feeling a bit of anxiety grow from the memory, you grabbed onto the guard rail next to you and began to tap slowly.

“So, big-burnt-and-ugly and I fought for a while. I was really trying to keep him from burning down the entire neighborhood, but he was pretty pissy the whole time; had flames shooting out of everywhere on him.” Dante continued again as he used his hands to mirror flames shooting out of his face. “I finally took him down though.

I was very confused when I didn’t see you around the house though, considering that charred and crispy had burnt down every wall around. That’s when I heard you though, your tapping.”

“My…tapping?” you asked, stopping your fingers. “I was tapping…?”

“Mm-hm. I followed the noise, and boy was I surprised to find you under the floorboards. Definitely the last place I would’ve checked,” Dante said, his hand coming up to rub his chin gently.

“That’s like… some twisted Tell-Tale Heart kind of madness right there,” you muttered.

“Like some what?”

“N-Nothing,” you said quickly. Your eyebrows furrowed a bit as Dante’s story ended, and from your almost grave in the floor, you assumed you were taken directly to the hospital you were in now. You were surprised that you hadn’t smelt the burning around you when you were losing consciousness, and you felt a bit of dread hit you at the thought. How close to gone had you been that you weren’t able to smell a house burning down? Would you be gone now if you hadn’t spent the last part of your consciousness tapping on the floor like a deranged person? Those thoughts were definitely the worst thoughts you had had in a while, and you wanted to cap them up in a bottle to throw at sea so you’d never have them again.

“H-Hey Dante?” you called out quickly, wanting to pull yourself from your mind quickly.

“Yeah?”

“W-When I’m released, do you think…” you paused, unsure of how to word what you wanted to say to the man, your one hand coming up to wave about as you tried to form the right words. “W-Well…I want to see where I was being k-kept? Would it be possible for you to show me?”

“You…want to see where?” The man half asked, his voice full of confusion. You merely nodded and looked toward the door to your room as you were not sure of what expression you were wearing currently, but you didn’t want it to distract the man from answering your request. “I guess I can show you, there isn’t much left there, however. Like I said, most everything was burnt down,” he finally replied.

“Th-That’s fine, um… thanks…” you said, sighing lightly afterwards. You felt your heart pound at the thought of going to see where you were being kept, and you knew you couldn’t hide that as the monitor next to you was beeping in time with your heart. You knew Dante was giving you a concerned look, you could feel it from where you sat, but instead of meeting his eye, you merely laid down.


	11. The Feigned Return

“Dante, we seriously need to talk about your spending habits, cause you are barely staying afloat here right now.”

“Have… you slept at all? You’re not looking so hot right now, babe.”

“First off, that’s really fucking rude. Second, you’re trying to change the subject, now stop it.”

Of all the things you wanted to hear for the day, that was the thing you wanted to hear the absolute least. Maybe it was because you hadn’t slept at all during the couple of days since you had been released from the hospital and you were a bit cranky and emotional. You didn’t really believe that though and you thought it was more likely that you were emotional and on the edge of crying was because Dante was being a complete ass to you, who had graciously offered to work on his finances.

The first day out of the hospital was a rough one, and it was only because the hospital decided that you could leave on what would have been the day that the culprit, whom you now know was named Lain, would have removed part or all of your liver. Your arm’s dressing had been changed one last time before you left, and your nurse suggested wearing a sling to hold your arm in place to minimize movement of it for a few weeks while it healed. You had originally protested the sling, but since Dante and your nurse were persistent in trying to convince you to use the sling because you were, as they said, “a bit of a troublemaker”, you decided to comply with them and put the sling on to make them stop bringing it up.

From the feeling of constriction, and from what the day was, you were completely anxious, and there wasn’t a part of your body that wasn’t feeling the coil of dread in it as you stepped out of the hospital’s doors to the rest of the world.

The cars that drove past on the street, and the people that were going into the hospital made you feel odd, as you felt like your life had been paused for the last 4 days, and yet those that you saw moving around you seemed so unaffected by what had happened to you. You had been brought out of your thoughts by 2 gentle hands on your shoulders, and you about screamed out at the touch. You turned around quickly to see a surprised Dante, his hands still hanging in the air.

You had apologized profusely, but Dante still seemed phased by your reaction. He made you walk to the store with him, promised that he’d keep his hands to himself. You allowed him to guide you to his store, as you didn’t want to go home just yet.

As soon as you walked into the store, a bit of anxiety left you, but you still felt overwhelmed in every part of you. It was a relief to see that the floor was still clean, and that Dante had lied to you about making a mess all over the store. The next thing you looked at after you had seen your beautiful floor was the bar, and you thought about making yourself a drink.

Dante refused to let you, however, and instead directed you away from the cabinet of liquor. You sat yourself at Dante’s desk after he refused to serve you, something that confused the man as you normally sat yourself at the couch nearby, but as he leaned against the edge of his desk, you explained that you had plans for the store now that you had some time off and needed something to do. To him, this was merely something to keep you occupied while you recovered, but to you this was something to help stave off the anxiety and feelings of dread that kept stirring inside you.

Dante wasn’t amused by what you had told him, your first plan being cleaning the entire store front again until it was completely spotless. Your second plan was to organize all of his finances, something you had taken a peek at when you had deep cleaned the store many months before. Your final plan was to plan out a finishing plan for the back of the store.

You hadn’t gone to the back of the store a lot, having been there only a few times to find things that Dante was looking for and one time for yourself to see if the man owned a broom back there, but it was a sad sight to behold. The entire back was an unfinished space, but it was a massive space. There were support beams all over the room, there were no windows that weren’t covered up with barely held together curtains, there were boxes with labels of various kinds and in various languages placed haphazardly around, and there was 1 lonely sink sitting near the wall that was shared with the bathroom. You weren’t able to explore the back room to the fullest you wanted to as the at least 1 foot of dust that was covering everything prevented you from trekking further in, as you feared you wouldn’t be able to breath once you went in.

You had brought up the back room with Dante at one point in time, and the man merely shrugged you off, not very concerned about the space at all. Since then, all you wanted to do was dive in and clean the room, make it presentable at the very least, before you tried to plan out how the space could be used better. The front of Dante’s store was finished and looked relatively nice most days, so it was surprising that the rest of the building was so forgotten and in need of love.

Cleaning the store was easy for you, as you knew where the most messy places usually were: Dante’s desk, the couch near the back of the store, the bar, mostly the places where Dante rotated throughout a typical day. But you hadn’t been able to move for such a long time that, despite being in a small amount of pain consistently, you just had way too much energy. Dante, justifiably, was worried that you were going to hurt yourself as you cleaned, as doing most anything was difficult with one arm. But you persisted on with your dusting wand and cleaning rags that you placed in a small bucket attached to your belt.

Cleaning was a comforting action, despite how much energy it took out of you, as it helped you direct the negative energy you had in you to something that wasn’t your brain. You felt that if you let your brain have any of the negative energy you had in you, you’d start thinking terrible thoughts and you’d rather avoid doing that for as long as you could.

Dante tried to get in your way a total of one time, but after you had smacked him with the wand and given him a look that showed him how serious you were about cleaning, the man stayed out of your way, his feet propped up on the coffee table and his body not leaving the couch. He kept to his magazines while you worked through the store, starting from the front, tiled portion of the store to the back corner where the bar was, and he waited for you to call out to him should you need assistance.

There were a few places that you couldn’t reach alone, but you refused to ask Dante for help, opting instead to drag around his desk chair to stand on. He wasn’t very happy that you were dragging his chair around and not asking for help, but as he watched you, he kept his eye on your injured arm and was at least pleased that you had barely moved it.

The front of the store was the least dusty, and you wondered if it was because of the door opening and closing all the time, blowing the dust around as you knew Dante never dusted. The railing of the stairs was less than amusing to dust through, and it was mildly annoying that the dusting wand would get caught in the intricate details of the railing. The bannister above that lined the small floor that hung above the store was extremely dusty as well, and you wondered if Dante even ever went upstairs with how undisturbed the dust was. You also noticed the door up there, something you had never seen from below before, and you wondered if it led to another unfinished area in the back of the store.

Dusting around the wooden floor next, you started below the stairs and worked on the radiator near them after you polished off the shelves of stuff. You were almost impressed that the shelf looked untouched by the look of the stuff still being organized. You skipped over Dante’s desk, wanting to save that for later when you worked on his finances, and worked to complete the area that Dante was sitting in.

The man was less than helpful, and you found yourself having to step over and around him to touch the tops of the windows with your dusting wand. Dante, being Dante, made snarky comments the entire time you stepped around him, commenting on how he had his own personal housekeeper now, and how nice it was to not to have clean up anymore. You countered him by saying that he never cleaned up to begin with, and as you planted one foot on either side of his sitting self, you stared down at the man for a second.

“…As much as I enjoy the view, I can’t read my magazine very easily, babe.” Getting smacked with the dust wand again shut Dante up quickly, and you removed yourself from over him, your face feeling on fire as you jumped over to the corner to dust the bar and surrounding decorations.

Satisfied with your work on the store, you sat yourself down again at Dante’s desk, and you couldn’t help but look over the whole store. It still looked pretty dull and dreary, but at least there wasn’t a speck of dust anywhere to be found, except maybe on the dangling lights. Looking up at the them, you wondered if you had any way to reach them.

“…Hey, Dante,” you called out. Hearing a hum of acknowledgement, you looked over to the preoccupied man. “Anyway I can convince you to lift me up so I can dust the lights?”

“What? No way, doll.” Shrugging a bit, you were satisfied as you had at least tried. Dante raised his eyebrow at you as you turned away and pulled open the top drawer of his desk. “Hey, what’re you doing now?”

“I told you before, I’m gonna work on your finances. Last time I checked, you weren’t doing so hot,” you replied as you pulled out stacks of papers. The drawer had gained a few more papers since the last time you opened it, something that worried you a bit. Repeating your motion and pulling out all the papers from every drawer, you felt a bit overwhelmed by the stacks of papers that piled atop the desk. Sighing loudly, you began to sort out the stacks, taking care to make as many piles of paperwork as you needed to find specific sheets later.

At some point in your sorting, you heard a light snoring noise, and as you looked over to Dante, his magazine now covering his face, you couldn’t help but chuckle a bit. Turning to look at the clock, you realized that it was just past midnight, a lot later than you thought it was. Feeling your lips tighten a bit at the sight, you turned back to the paper you held in your hand and skimmed over it. Placing it onto the proper stack, you felt the weight on your eyes try to tug them closed. 

Feeling the anxiety still inside you, a lessened amount than earlier in the day but still enough to make you feel sick, you shook out your head and returned to your sorting, determined to keep sleep at bay for more time.

Once the paper on top of Dante’s desk were sorted, there were still the papers that were shoveled into the shelves under the stairs. Although you had organized them months before, you hadn’t thoroughly sorted them and so they were just lined up on the shelf, waiting to be sorted through.

The sun arose just as you finished sorting the final papers, and you couldn’t help but sigh loudly as you placed the final paper. It had taken a lot longer than you wanted it to to sort all the papers, and you hadn’t even sorted them by dates yet, only by type. Picking up a stack and making more room on the desk, you began the long task of sorting it by the dates listed, assuming there was even a date on it. Undated papers were given their own pile and you knew you’d have to fill in the missing dates of the dated pile with them at some point.

A loud snort brought you out of your deep sorting routine, and you jumped at the noise as you turned to look at Dante, your eyes wide and mouth a little agape. The man let his magazine fall off his face and onto his lap, and he stretched his arms and legs out. He lifted his head up to look at you as his legs hit the table again, another noise that caused you to jump a bit.

“What’s up?” the man asked, his eyebrow raised. You merely shook your head and returned to your sorting again, leaving Dante confused.

Finally, FINALLY, every pile was sorted by type and by date, and you felt content knowing you’d hopefully never have to do something so tedious again. You were going to leave sticky notes with instructions on them for Dante so that the man would hopefully at least attempt to place the papers near the correct pile when he needed to rid himself of them.

Grabbing a stack of clean paper, you began to work down Dante’s budget, something you felt like might be an impossible task. You liked a challenge though, even if there was a chance that the task would never have a definite end. One by one you went through all the stacks of papers, trying and failing to not judge the purchases made by the man through the years.

There were many names on the papers you didn’t recognize, and you wondered briefly who all the were people that Dante had done business with in the past. The name of Enzo came up a lot, and his name suddenly disappeared from the papers at some point. It seemed that he was someone who frequently did business with Dante in the past, but whom had almost completely vanished from the man’s paperwork in recently years. It was curious to see disappearance of the name so suddenly, and it made you wonder what could have happened for the man and Dante to no longer do business together.

During your budgeting spree, you were brought out of your mind by the touch of something warm to your cheek, and you gasped at the feeling as you slid your chair backwards on the floor. Looking at the warm offender, a slice of pizza that Dante held in his hand, you turned to look at the man. His face was a bit contorted, and you grinned sheepishly at him.

“You hungry?” he asked. Looking from him to the pizza again, you wondered when Dante had left, or when he had even gotten up as you couldn’t recall hearing any movement. How did he pull up a chair next to you without you noticing at all?

“I, uh…yeah,” you said after a few moments, your hand reaching to grab the slice. Sitting in silence and eating, you let your brain spin around the numbers you had just written down as you tried to keep your mind was wandering to somewhere with terrible thoughts. You had finally started to tackle the food portion of Dante’s budget, the part that worried you the most. As you grabbed another slice of pizza from the box, you realized that you were in fact starving, unsure of when you had last eaten.

You managed to grab another 2 slices from Dante before he finished off the box, almost having to fight the man for your final piece, and you were almost impressed with yourself at how much you had just eaten. Granted, your body was craving some sort of nutrition as you had barely eaten in the prior 24 hours, so it made sense that were going to eat a lot in one sitting when you finally ate.

Turning your focus away from how full you felt, you went back to your budgeting, and Dante returned himself to the couch. Instead of grabbing a magazine, however, the man watched you as you worked, but you barely noticed, your attention turned fully on the almost disgusting amount of pizza receipts, debts, and tabs that Dante had.

Now, after all the time had passed where you had looked every single pizza receipt you found before, it made absolutely no sense to you, having done all the math twice to double check, how one man could have possibly eaten 520 pizzas in about 6 months’ time. You weren’t even sure you had eaten that many slices of pizza in your lifetime, but the receipts didn’t lie to you as you stared down at them and then over to Dante. Your face was full of expression, as you were impressed, worried, concerned, and disgusted in that moment, and Dante only stared at you as he waited for you to speak.

But his face changed immediately when he saw the tears sitting in your eyes, and he brought his hand up to rub the back of his neck slowly.

“You can’t…you can’t just tell someone they look terrible,” You muttered finally. Dante looked to the side as he kept rubbing that back of his neck, and you sighed lightly.

“I’m…sorry?” he said after a few seconds, his eyes coming back to you. You only shook your head and turned back to the papers in front of you. Dante stood up from his place, and you listened as he walked over to his desk and stood on the side. “What did you want to talk about then?”

“You… cannot eat this much pizza,” you said as you turned to look at Dante. “You’ve eaten as much pizza that 1 person could eat in their life in just 6 months!”

“…I…I think you’re done with those now.”

“What?” Seeing Dante reach for the papers before you, you jumped forward and grabbed his arm firmly. “No! I’m not done yet!” Hearing a chuckle from the man, you looked up at him and pouted.

“What, what’s with the pout?” He asked as his chuckle became a laugh. “You can’t tell a guy not to eat his favourite thing and expect that he’ll just take that without fighting!”

“I’m just…how can you afford this much pizza? Where do you get the money to buy it all?” you asked, your tone a bit exacerbated. “I’ve looked over what you bring home, and you don’t make nearly enough to afford all those everything pizzas! And I haven’t even touched your receipts of beer and booze or…literally anything else!” you rambled on, refusing to let go of Dante’s arm. Dante continued to laugh, and he gently pulled at his arm, playfully trying to free it from your grasp.

“Oh, well, that’s all you’ve looked at so far?” he said as he slowly looked over the desk. Taking a second to look over all the papers, he pushed down one of his fingers on his free hand onto one of the piles before you. Turning and looking at the pile he was pointing at, you grasped harder on his other arm as he continued to tug it.

Refusing to let go, you merely leaned over the desk, gently resting your slinged elbow on the desk as you glanced at the papers. Dante scolded you for moving your injured arm, but you ignored him as you stuck your tongue out a bit in favor of reading the headings on the papers.

‘IOU – Lady’

Right, that’s how.

Groaning a bit, you slumped back in your chair and kicked your feet forward. As you leaned your head back, you heard Dante still chuckling a bit, and you finally released his arm from your grasp.

“I totally forgot about your other debts…” you muttered as you turned to look at the man. He was leaning against the desk, his arm resting on the top of it as he watched you. “This is…gonna take a long time I think.”

“Hey, if you’re so worried about my finances, you’re free to pay for my pizza in the meantime,” Dante teased.

“…I still don’t even know where my wallet is!” you exclaimed, quickly reaching down and patting your pockets. “I can’t pay for anything until I find that!”

“Oh, right. It’s in the evidence lock up I think,” Dante explained. “Morrison’s wrapping up the case, so he should be calling at some point and we can go get your stuff.”

“Oh, great, it’s evidence…” you muttered as you pouted. Dante chuckled at your expression, and you only pouted more when you heard him.

“Is that all you wanted to talk about?” Humming a confirmation and shrugging at Dante, he pulled himself off the desk and knelt down next to you. You furrowed your eyebrows, confused at what he was doing. “You wanna answer my question now?”

“Your question…?” Sitting and thinking for a second, you remembered what Dante had asked you only a few minutes before. “Oh, right. I have…I got a little bit of sleep,” you lied. You could tell that Dante knew you were lying by the expression on his face, and, though you didn’t want to admit it, you probably did look pretty awful at the moment which didn’t help your lie. Turning away from the man quickly, you grabbed your dust wand and turned back to Dante. “H-Here!”

“What….am I gonna do with this?” he asked, completely confused as he grabbed onto the wand.

“Can you dust out the back of the store?” you asked. “I-I can’t do it cause it’s way too dusty for me, and I’m a bit worried I’ll become one with the dust.” Seeing Dante’s face furrow up, you waited a second and watched him as he flipped the dust wand over as he looked over it. “Please?” The man sighed and stood up, and just before he walked away to the back of the store, he gave you a look of concern. You only grinned at him as he walked away, and once he was out of the sight and you heard the door to the back close, you returned your attention to the budget in front of you.

As time passed while you worked on the remainder of Dante’ budget, you would occasionally hear concerning noises coming from the back of the store. Many times you wanted to stop and go and check on Dante, to see what he was doing that could be causing so much noise, but you refused to move as you wanted to finish going through his papers as fast as possible.

It seemed like you were in hell for the longest time, as paper after paper got filed away after you wrote down everything on it. The repetition you were seeing among Dante’s purchases and debts was incredible, and if some of them weren’t dated then you would’ve thought that the man had hundreds of copies of the same receipt for no reason. But finally, as you set down the last piece of paper from the last of the stacks of papers, you groaned loudly. Despite your groan, you were almost ecstatic as you had finally, FINALLY gathered up all of Dante’s financial woes and incomes, balanced his books for the business, and made a reasonable budget for him. There were still a few things you needed to ask him for clarification, but the worst of the balancing was over.

Hearing the door to the back slam open, you jumped up, your legs knocking down the chair you sat in as you hopped up. You jumped again as the chair hit the ground, and you quickly turned to where the original noise came from. Seeing a puff of dust floating near the bar, you felt your face fall a bit. Only a few moments after seeing the dust did you see a dust covered figure emerge from behind the wall, and you couldn’t help but snort at the unimpressed face that was plastered on Dante.

“I can see why you were worried about becoming one with the dust! I had no idea I had a portal to hell in the back of my shop!” Dante snarked as he smirked, his hand resting on his side as he looked over at you. You covered your mouth quickly and laughed into it, uncaring of how loud your laugh was. “Do you need the bathroom before I wash all this gunk off? I’m probably gonna be awhile since it feels like the dust is trying to eat me.” Dante said as he gently lifted his jacket to the side as he began to slide it off.

As you kept laughing, you waved your hand in front of you to shoo Dante away who was already stripping away his shirt to free himself from the dust cover that was coating him. The man just chuckled a bit before he turned and walked to the bathroom, hoping to rid himself of the disgusting feeling on him. Hearing the door close again, you made your way over the coach and sat down, still laughing a bit. You couldn’t get the image of Dante’s face as he left the back out of your head, and it was definitely one of the funniest things you had seen in a while.

Laying down on the couch slowly, you grabbed the pillow that sat on the back of the couch and placed it under your injured arm and elevated it. Resting your head against the arm of the couch, you stared up at the ceiling as you heard the sound of the water turn on.

You wondered how long Dante would be, as you felt your stomach growl a bit. Lifting the curtain on the window above you, you furrowed your eyebrows a bit at the lack of sunlight that was shining through. You looked at the clock nearby and were surprised to see it was almost 9 at night, and you hadn’t even noticed that another whole day had passed. Letting the curtain fall back into place, you turned your eyes back to the ceiling again.

It had been just over a day since you had left the hospital, but it only felt like a little bit ago there you were sitting on the clean white bed still hooked up to an IV drip and vitals monitor. Your anxiety hadn’t lessened much since the sun had risen that morning, and it was frustrating to still be feeling the heavy weight in you. You had hoped that being productive, overly productive at that, would help how awful you felt, but nothing had changed. It was annoying to say the very least. And you still felt bad about lying to Dante earlier, even though the man knew that you were lying.

You peeked at the liquor cabinet, and wondered if having a drink would help you. Feeling the tug at your arm as you sat up a bit, you gave up sitting up and threw yourself back onto the couch, deciding against a drink right now. The idea didn’t leave your mind, and you decided that if you didn’t feel better by sunrise, then you’d just spend tomorrow a bit tipsy just to give yourself a break from the horrible feelings.

Tomorrow was so far away, however, and as you felt the weight of exhaustion in you coupled with your anxiety, you sighed. Sleep wasn’t an option you wanted to consider right now; the nightmares had been subdued in the hospital as you hadn’t dreamed at all because of whatever pain meds they were giving you. You were taken off pain meds the day before you left the hospital, however, and the night of sleep you had had horrible and bloody nightmares again. The ones from the last few months were almost tolerable compared to the one you had in the hospital, and now you just wished to never experience that again.

You knew humans could go a good amount of time before they needed to sleep, so you decided that your time was best spent working on something else. The back room needed a lot of work to it, and although you knew Dante couldn’t afford to fix up everything right now, it was best to get plans down so that you’d have an idea of how much it’d cost to renovate the room.

Opening your eyes which you had closed at some unknown point, you about screamed at the sight of Dante’s face sitting above you as he knelt nearby. Glancing down his face, your own eyes wide as your mouth lay open, you caught sight of the man’s chest and felt your face flush. Bringing your eyes back up to Dante’s gaze, you slowly lifted your arm and pressed your hand over Dante’s eyes. Feeling the man’s brow furrow a bit, you looked away from him.

“C-Can I help you?” you stuttered out quietly. Feeling Dante’s hand rise and rest over your own, you tensed up a bit.

“Nah, I was just checking to see if you fell asleep. The couch isn’t very comfortable, so I suggest using the bed upstairs,” Dante said as he pulled your hand away from his face. He didn’t release your hand however, and you refused to look at him.

“I wasn’t sleeping,” you stated simply.

“I think you need to; you’ve been up for far too long,” Dante said as he slowly brought your hand down to your chest.

“I don’t need to sleep,” you about spat out, still focusing your gaze away from the man.

“And why not? You look like…you need at least a nap,” the man said as he gently rubbed his thump over the back of your hand. You felt your face heat up more, and you very much wanted to roll off the back of the couch. Deciding it wasn’t worth it to rip your stiches out of your arm, you remained in place.

“I don’t need a nap, I’m fine,” you tried again.

“You’re not. I can tell from how tense you are,”

“I’m tense cause you’re…shirtless and harassing me!” Turning your head away more, you tried to bury your face in the cushions of the couch.

“No, you’re tense cause you need a nap,” Dante said as he sighed. “C’mon, I’ll show you upstairs.” Feeling a tug on your arm, you quickly turned your head and watched as Dante rose to his feet.

“No! I really don’t!” you countered as you tried to pull your hand free.

“Why in the world don’t you want to sleep?” Dante asked, a bit of frustration in his voice. “Your arm isn’t gonna heal as fast if you don’t sleep!”

“I just…don’t want to sleep!”

“And why not?” Pulling your lips tight, you felt the tension in your shoulders build up, and you slowly sat yourself up as Dante continued to gently pull on your arms. You looked away from the man and stared at the titled floor near the bar.

“I…You’re gonna laugh if I tell you, why can’t you drop it?” you asked quietly. Feeling the tugging on your arm halt, you waited. Only a moment later did you feel the weight of another person on the couch. Looking to your side, you saw Dante sitting next to you, his face softer than it was a few seconds ago. His tugging had stopped, but his hand still held yours, and you appreciated the warmth of it.

“I won’t. Promise,” Dante said, his tone much more serious than it usually was. Looking over his face, you knew he was telling the truth, and as he sat next to you, his thumb no longer running over your hand like you wanted it to, you felt yourself calm down slowly as the moments passed.

“I…don’t want to deal with the…nightmares…” you finally said, your voice growing quieter with each word. You turned your head away quickly, and you felt yourself tense up again as you waited for Dante to do or say anything.

“…You too, huh?

“What?” Throwing your head back around, you gave Dante a confused look, but all he did was give you a soft look. Confused, you looked over his whole face as you tried to process the words he had just said.

“C’mon, this way.” Feeling a gentle tug on your hand, Dante stood up and you hesitantly joined him in standing. He led the way, slowly stepping around the coffee table and walked toward the stairs. You followed him, and as he turned to climb the stairs, you looked down at your hand that he was still holding. Reaching the top of the stairs, Dante opened the door you had never been in before, and he released your hand before he motioned for you to go in.

Stepping inside, you were a bit surprised at the sight of another unfinished room that only had an unmade bed and a dresser in it. Your face scrunched at the sight, and you turned to watch Dante as he stepped into the room with you as he closed the door behind him. He motioned you toward the bed, but you didn’t move as he made his way to the dresser nearby.

“This is…your bedroom?” you asked as you watched Dante.

“Yeah, give me one second here,” The man said as he opened one of the drawers to the dresser before he suddenly threw his towel to the side into a pile of other piles, causing your face to grow immediately hot as you exclaimed, “Have you no shame!?” while you quickly covered your eyes with your hand and turned to the side.

“Oh, you’re being overly dramatic.” Dante laughed as he pulled out a pair of dark pants. “You’ve seen me strip down when I’ve been drunk before, there isn’t anything on me you haven’t seen yet.” Muttering to yourself about how shameless Dante was, you thought about how it was true that a drunk Dante did seem to have an affinity for striping down at random times, but at those times you were also drunk and so had hardly paid mind to the random acts. You listened as the man as he slid his bottoms on, and you forced your injured hand to relax as you had clenched your fist on that hand at some point and it was starting to become sore. Waiting for a few seconds, you finally felt the man pass you, and you quickly removed your hand from your face and looked at him as he moved toward the door. “Just call out if you need me,”

“W-Wait!” You said quickly as you reached and grabbed onto Dante’s arm. “A-Are you gonna leave me alone in this creepy room?”

“Creepy? I don’t think it’s that creepy,” Dante said, his eyes going around to all parts of the room.

“I-It’s horribly creepy! It looks like a haunted house in here! So-So you can’t leave me alone in here, I’ll never be able to sleep!” you sputtered out quickly. “N-Not that I was gonna sleep anyway, I think that that’s a terrible idea! S-So you can’t go leaving me here, cause what if something ha—"

“Alright, alright! I’ll stay!” Dante said as he threw his hands up in surrender. “I didn’t think you enjoyed my company so much.”

“I-I don’t,” you said as you shook your head. Turning and stepping toward the bed, you looked over the disheveled mess of blankets that had been balled up.

“Your full of lies today, aren’t you?” Turning and looking at Dante, you saw him raise his eyebrow at you. You felt your lips tighten and you sat yourself on the bed slowly. “I won’t leave you alone but let me go grab a magazine real fast.”

“…A-Are you just gonna end up falling asleep while you’re reading again?” you asked as you brought your legs up next to you.

“…Possibly, why?” Seeing the mans confused face, you gulped lightly.

“If you’re…just gonna fall asleep, why not just skip the magazine and…” pausing for a moment, you felt your face grow hot as you felt your heart race. “…just take a nap?” Seeing Dante’s eyebrow raise once again, you quickly turned away from him. Hearing some movement after a few moments, you waited. When the other side of the bed was pressed in, you watched as Dante rolled himself onto the bed, and pushed the pile of blankets closer to you. He didn’t look at you, and his eyes were already closed when his head hit the pillow. As he raised his arms and placed his hands behind his head, you slowly pulled one blanket free from pile and shook it out.

Laying down on your right side to allow your injured arm to not be squished, you slowly pulled the blanket you held over you as you laid your head down. You felt in your whole body, and your heart was still racing as you closed your eyes. You thought that you wouldn’t be able to fall asleep with how you were feeling, and you decided that you would get up when you heard Dante snoring shortly. But the feeling of the heft in your eyes kept your eyes closed, and despite your want to stay away, you slowly drifted into sleep, your body longing for deep rest.


	12. The Sudden Juxtaposition

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New tags, and I can't believe I had to add that to my tags and I can't stop screaming cause I didn't even think about it as I wrote this

You had seen Dante do some pretty amazing things in the last 6 months, from lifting a giant water snake demon off of the ground with his own two hands and then throwing it like it weighed nothing to consuming more pizza in one day than a human could eat in a month to being able to sleep in literally any place he sat down to even transforming into a beautiful demon when he activated his devil trigger, but to you, the most incredible thing you had yet to see the man do was to use his _goddamn_ brain for more than 2 _fucking_ seconds.

You knew you weren’t overly emotional and cranky from your lack of sleep because despite the fact that you had slept for a solid 12 hours straight, your head was still pressed into your hand as you tried to keep yourself from throwing Dante into a nearby trashcan. Lifting yourself up and looking at the man, his face far too smug for your liking in the moment, you felt your face scrunch at the sight.

“Look, I just don’t see the need to finish the back room,” Dante said as he brought a piece of pizza up to his lips. “Let alone add a kitchen and actual rooms back there. It’s fine as it is!” You had a lot more will power in you than you originally thought as you stopped yourself from reaching over and throwing both the box of pizza and the man holding it into the garbage.

“Because, Dante, you absolutely cannot keep taking out so many loans with Lady! You’re here all the time anyway, why not learn to cook or something? That and finishing the backroom would give you something to do instead of sitting on your fat ass all day and reading your magazines! Maybe you could rent out the rooms for extra money too?” you explained, your voice full of irritation as you brought your hand down to the desk.

“Hey, you like my fat ass!” Dante countered as he smirked. Smacking your hand into your face again, you drug it down your cheek and glared at the overly confident man. “And I work hard when I do work, what if I want to relax when I’m home?”

That… was probably the only valid point Dante had made, and you sighed as you considered it.

“What if…you found that painting and building WAS relaxing to you?” you proposed.

“Probably not,” Dante said as he bit into another slice of pizza. “Do I look seem someone who would enjoy painting?”

“How would I know? From all I ever see you do, you don’t enjoy anything besides pizza and sleeping!” You said, your voice full of irritation.

“Well, I think it’s obvious,” Dante said, motioning his hand over himself. “What do I seem like I enjoy? Like, I could look at you and tell you enjoy reading books even if I had only spent 5 minutes getting to know you.”

“Pray tell, how in the world could you tell that?” you asked, genuinely curious.

“Cause you’re a dork, and dorks always love books.”

Oh trashcan it was then.

Standing up from Dante’s desk quickly, you ran your hand over the top of the desk as you walked toward Dante, who was only giving you a smug look as you walked over to him.

The phone rang suddenly, and you jumped at the noise as you turned to look at it. Hearing shuffling, you turned to watch Dante stand up and make his way toward you and the desk. He handed you the box of pizza, which you begrudgingly took, before he reached for his phone.

“Devil May Cry,” you had heard Dante say that same phrase probably dozens of times, but no matter what day it was, it always changed the atmosphere of the store to hear him greet someone on the phone. You had wondered for months where Dante had gotten the name ‘Devil May Cry’ for his store, but the thought usually escaped your mind before you were able to ask him.

Sitting yourself back into Dante’s chair, you placed the box of pizza on your lap and opened it, happy to see that 2 pieces were left. Grabbing one, you began to munch on it as you tried, and failed, to not eavesdrop on Dante’s phone call.

“All done then?” The man said, his one hand pressed on the desktop as he leant on the side. Dante listened for a long time on the phone, and he barely said anything to whoever he was talking to. Occasionally he would hum or grunt in confirmation as he listened, and it wasn’t until a few minutes has passed that he spoke again. “Alright, thanks for letting me know. If everything’s all wrapped up, then we can come…wait, actually.” Pausing, Dante glanced to the side at you, and you felt your face scrunch as he looked at you. “Is that house the demon was staying in still quarantined?” Scooting forward a bit, you listened in more to what Dante was saying, hoping to hear whoever was on the other end of the phone. “Okay, great. Can you bring all the stuff with you to there?” Unable to hear the other person, you finished off your piece of pizza and grabbed another to eat as you waited for Dante to get off the phone.

“Thanks Morrison,” Dante finally said just before he placed the phone back in its place. He turned to you and you paused your chewing for a second. “Morrison’s going to bring your stuff to where that demon’s house was. You said you wanted to go see it, right?” Continuing your chewing, you nodded at Dante and closed the pizza box.

You hadn’t thought about your captivity much since you left the hospital, maybe it was because you had been distracting yourself with things to do since you arrived at Devil May Cry or maybe it was because thinking of your time in that basement brought forth a coil of dread that almost paralyzed you. Regardless, you knew you had asked Dante to bring you to see the area, and you had yet to prepare yourself for that return.

You felt your heart begin to speed up as you thought about what the area could look like now that it was no longer burning and now that it had probably been combed over completely by detectives for the case. The place where you were held captive was below the floors of the house, and your last memories of the room were just as dark as your memories of when you first woken up in there.

“You ready to go?” Dante asked, his hand offered to you to help you to your feet.

“…yeah,” you lied.

* * *

There wasn’t much left to of the house to look at. When Dante had described all the walls as having been burnt down, you thought there was going to be a little bit of wall or molding left near the floor to show where the walls once stood, and yet neither were present as you glanced over the area. The smell was still strong, despite days having passed since the fire was started and the elements being allowed to run over the exposed area, and you had to cover your nose as you stood because it was overwhelming.

The area where the house once stood was charred and blackened from the flames, but it was still obvious where the foundations of the house began. Dante wouldn’t let you step past the edges of the concrete, however, and as you leaned down and ran your hand over the floorboard that was covered in a centimeter ash and soot, you understood why.

Parts of the floorboards had fallen in, but only in one area of the house. It confused you as to why only that specific part was the only place where the wooden boards were falling it. Standing and walking around the house slowly, you were able to see more of the area below the house, and as the outline of a desk became more visible to you as you moved, your brain registered that that was the area where the culprit’s victims had been kept. Your heart was already racing when you had left Devil May Cry, but the sound of it now started to pound in your ears are you looked over the desk that was covered in wooden boards and dust.

Turning and glancing behind you, you noticed that Dante didn’t follow you, and was still standing in the same place he was before you moved. He was watching you, and the expression on his face was unreadable as you looked over his features. Turning back to the house, you let your eyes run up and down the remaining floor pieces. Despite the whole house being visible from where you stood, no part of the house stood out as more burnt to you, something that you found kind of odd. Continuing around the house again, you continued to glance over all of the floor as you looked for a hint of difference among each plank. Reaching the original side that Dante still stood on, you felt your face scrunch a bit.

“What’re you looking for?” Dante asked as you approached him. It was a bit hard to hear his as he spoke as your heart was still in your ears.

“Where…was the fire started?” you asked quietly as you stepped up to the base of the foundation again. Turning and looking at Dante’s face, he smiled a bit and you felt a bit confused.

“You noticed that too, huh?” Dante asked you as he stepped forward. He lifted his hand and pointed to the corner of where the floorboards started to fall in, and you turned your eyes to the area. “There, that’s where.”

“So close…” you muttered to yourself as your eyes moved quickly between the spot Dante pointed to and the area below.

“Morrison, for the longest time, couldn’t figure out how the victims were being set on fire,” Dante explained suddenly. Looking up to him as he lowered his arm, you listened intently. “That’s why he came to me. ‘I don’t believe in spontaneous combustion, so something demonic must be happening to these people’ he had said,” Dante continued, his voice changing to mimic Morrison’s and you couldn’t help but chuckle at bit at the imitation.

“I mean, I don’t blame him… Humans are hard to burn,” you said, slowly turning back to the burnt house. “I-I mean, I assume so anyway, since we’re made of pretty fire retardate stuff,” you sputtered out quickly. “L-Like fat is pretty durable, and I can’t imagine bone is very easy to set fire to either, plus you’ve gotta get through skin first an—” Feeling a hand come down on your head, you snapped your mouth shut and jumped a bit. Turning back to look at Dante, he slowly ran his hand through your hair, brushing it to the side.

“We still aren’t quite sure…what he was doing to the victims to set them on fire, even though he was a fire demon, whether he was just setting them on fire and leaving, or if he was doing something to them before he set them on fire,” Dante said as he looked down to you. “But the important part is that he won’t be able to do it again.”

“…Right.” You agreed, slowly turning back to look at the house remains once more. “D-Dante?”

“What’s up, babe?”

“I-I uh…” stopping yourself, you began to tap your fingers on your side slowly as you tried to figure out how to word what you wanted to say. “I-I want to try and start getting things…back to normal.” Feeling the hand on your head shift, you turned around completely and put your back to the charred home. “S-Since everything’s now done, I-I think it’s time for me to go back to home and to work…”

“You sure you don’t need a few more days of recovery?” Dante asked, his eyes lowering to meet yours. Shaking your head a bit, you slowly reached up and pulled Dante’s hand off of your head.

“No, I’ll be fine,” you said as you slowly let go of Dante’s hand. Hearing a call in the distance, you turned and saw Morrison approaching you and Dante. Waving at the man, you waited til he was near before you greeted him. He lifted his hat and nodded at you and Dante, and slowly set his hat back on his head as he raised up a bag toward you.

Taking it slowly, he explained that the bag held all your belongings. Checking inside, you confirmed that your stuff was inside, but you sighed as you noticed the layer of dust on them and the smell of burning still lingering over them. You thanked Morrison as you closed the bag, and then slung it over your shoulder.

The three of you talked for a little while, mostly going over formalities as Morrison asked how you were doing. You explained your situation, emphasizing that you were happy to be able to move again without having a nurse yelling at you. The man couldn’t help but laugh a bit as you went on about your found again freedom, and it wasn’t long after when you finished rambling on that you and Dante departed from the area toward your apartment.

It was a longer walk than normal to your home, and though the sun hung high in the sky, the air was brisk as you and Dante walked side by side. You were barely paying attention to the people and events passing by you as you moved, your mind mostly focused on the next day. You wished to return back to your normal again, but as you turned a corner behind Dante, you couldn’t help but wonder what your normal was anymore.

Had the times of working depressingly day in and day out finally departed from you? It seemed like such a long time ago that you could barely pick up a book and finish it in a few days, as your free time at work was filled with making time pass by quickly as you awaited your next day off. It would be a relief to return to your routine once again, but there was conflict in you at the thought.

The normality had once caused you such despair, so the thoughts of wanting to return to it quickly were confusing. But this normality was different, your routine almost completely different than what it used to be. Although your days were still spent mostly at the library and then at home where you barely slept, no 2 days blurred together in a fog of memory when you tried to recollect when past events had occurred.

Almost every week since you had started to spend your Thursdays off at Devil May Cry had brought new events and excitement into your life, and you could recall each week as distinctly as the last. Even the weeks at work that were the most mundane and boring still stuck out to you as you were able to at least place the week to a date based on association to what had happened at Devil May Cry. No longer had you walked home with thoughts circling back on themselves as you paced through the darkness. Had the game that life had thrown you into really shaken up your life so much that it was allowing you to almost completely reinvent yourself? Or had you finally freed yourself from the rut you were dug into so that you could see everything more clearly than before you had met Dante?

At the sight of your apartment door, you pulled your bag down from your shoulder, dreading opening it for a second before you dug your hand into it in search of your keys. Pulling them out, you returned your bag to your shoulder and began to shake out your keys as you eyed your house key. Grabbing onto the correct one, you walked up to your apartment door, but stopped just outside it.

“Thanks for walking me home,” you said as you turned around.

“Don’t worry about it, it’s on the way to my place any way so,” Dante said, bringing his arms up and shrugging a bit. “Before I leave though,” seeing Dante reach into his jacket, you watched him. His face furrowed a bit as he checked the other side of his jacket before he pulled his hand out, a box now in hand.

“What’s that?” you asked as you looked over the box. Dante shook his head a bit and handed the box to you. Taking it, it was very heavy, much heavier than you thought it was, and you looked at Dante.

“You don’t like the type who’d go out and get one yourself, but it’s a gun,” Dante explained as he crossed his arms over his chest. Looking down at the box again, you raised an eyebrow. “It’s just…In case you need it.”

“…Thank you,” you said, slowly opening your bag and setting it inside gently.

“You ever shoot a gun before? Or I guess, do you know how to use one?” Dante asked.

“It’s been a while, but I’m kind of familiar with them,” you explained as you closed your bag.

“That’s good, then I’m not worried you’ll shoot your roommate or someone. Then, if you’re wanting to get things back to normal, should I expect you at the store on Thursday?”

“…What day is it today?” you asked.

“Tuesday, I think?”

“Maybe not this week…” you chuckled a bit, bringing your hand up and adjusting your bag a bit. “I’m surprised you’re not sick of having me around the store.”

“I don’t think I could get sick of having you around the store,” Dante said, his hands coming up to rest on his sides.

“That’s a fat lie if I’ve ever heard one,” you countered, sticking your tongue out a little bit.

“Hey, I’m a lot of bad things, but I‘m not a liar!” Dante replied, his one hand coming up to cover his heart and his other raising into the air. “Swear on my life!”

“So… you’re swearing on your life full of lewd magazines, overindulging on alcohol, and being a professional demon killer?” you chuckled. “I’m not sure if I’m supposed to believe you more or less now!” Dante laughed a bit and brought his hands down to his sides.

You couldn’t help but chuckle a bit as you watched the man for a second. As you and Dante slowly grew quiet, you found yourself looking over the man slowly. You found yourself looking at his lips for a bit before you looked up to his eyes, catching him also looking over you. Feeling your face grow hot, you quickly turned your head away and stared at the nearby trash can as you tried to sputter out words. Feeling a hand come up under your chin, you flinched a bit and looked up at Dante again as his hand lowered a bit.

Seeing his face show a bit of surprise, you looked between his hand and his face before you gently lowered your chin down to touch his hand again. Dante let out a low hum, and you felt like your head was going to explode from how warm it felt. Feeling a bit of pressure under your chin, you furrowed your eyebrows a bit just before Dante moved closer, his feet bringing him closer to you.

Without thinking, you slid your feet back slowly, your back gently meeting the wall as the entirety of Dante drew closer. Bringing your hand up, your bag and keys fell to the ground, something you barely noticed as you laid your hand over Dante’s arm.

Your eyes met Dante’s as he neared, and you only broke your locked gaze with him when you began to feel his breathe on your face, your eyes going down to his lips again. Dante’s head tilted just before he stopped, his nose just about to touch yours and your face was still burning, but you barely noticed as you stared at the lips hovering near yours. Squeezing Dante’s arm a bit, you suddenly realized that he had moved his hand and had placed both his arms on each side of you, locking you to the wall.

When Dante began to move forward, you closed your eyes slowly, feeling the warm breath on your face grow closer. Your heart skipped a beat when you finally felt the touch of Dante’s lips on yours, and your breath caught in your chest. Feeling the lips against yours move, you gently clenched your hand and let your lungs relax as you began to move your lips as well, your heart feeling like it was going to pound right out of your chest.

Dante was surprisingly soft as he kept his lips moving with yours, both his kiss and his lips, and you felt yourself slowly relax the more you moved your lips with the man. He didn’t press himself closer to you, but you felt a growing need in you for more contact as he pulled back for a second.

Feeling his breath on your face again, you slowly opened your eyes a small bit, catching sight of the man’s expression that was softer than any expression you had ever seen before. Feeling your breath hitch a little bit, you reached up, your hand grazing Dante’s jaw lightly as you reached around his head. Weaving your hand through the silver hair and cupping your hand at the base of Dante’s neck, you pulled the man closer, pushing your lips against his again.

Dante hummed lightly as his lips began to move against yours, his movements more firm as he pressed against you. You combed your fingers through the man’s hair as you mirrored his actions, your heart still racing in the moment. The kiss only lasted a few more seconds before Dante pulled away again, his forehead resting against yours gently as you tried to catch your breath.

You hesitantly opened your eyes, and you felt your face burn up at the look Dante was giving you. You felt your lips move a bit as you wanted to say something, but nothing came out from your mouth.

“…It seems you’ve fallen under my spell,” Dante said quietly, his voice more rough than you’re ever heard before. You shivered a bit, your hand slowly coming back around the man and resting over his chest as you tilted your head a bit.

“Y-Your spell…?” Being completely flustered in the moment, you were taking a second to process what Dante had just said to you.

“Remember? I told you I was an incubus,” Dante said as he winked. Feeling your lips pull tight, you lifted your hand up and pushed it up under the man’s chin, pushing him off of you.

“You’re a dork, that’s what you are!” You said as you felt Dante’s arms remove themselves from around you. The man laughed, his hands coming up to grasp lightly at your wrist. You couldn’t help but laugh a bit as well, though a bit mad that you had given into to such a dork. Feeling your hand be removed from Dante’s chin, the man brought your hand down and held it lightly. Pulling it toward his face, Dante kissed the top lightly, and you couldn’t help but flush a bit as the man stared you directly in the eye as he did so.

“I’ll…see you next Thursday then?” he asked lightly as he let your hand linger near his mouth. You nodded lightly as you gently poked the man on the nose.

“Yeah, see you Thursday,” you said quietly. Dante hesitated a moment before he let your hand go. He knelt down and grabbed your bag and keys, bringing it up for you to grab. You smiled a bit and grabbed them, and Dante lingered for only a moment more before he turned around and started to walk down the alley, his arm coming up to give you a backhanded, two finger wave.

You only turned around once Dante was out of sight around the corner, your hand fumbling a bit to insert your key in the lock. Finally succeeding in causing the lock tumblers to align, you withdrew your keys and threw open the door to the inside. Hearing a loud crash suddenly, you jumped a bit, your keys flying from your hand to the floor nearby.

“Son of a bitch!” Hearing the voice come from the other room, you called out to the source as you stepped inside more, closing the door behind you. “You scared me!” Alecz said as they rounded the corner from the living room. “W-What’s with that face? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I-I’ve…just never heard you curse before,” you admitted, wondering what your face could look like in the moment. Bending down to grab your keys, you placed them in your bag before you rose to your feet again. “Sorry for scaring you, I didn’t mean to.”

“No, it’s fine, just startled me a bit, and I accidentally threw my book…” Alecz said as they shook their head. You couldn’t help but laugh a bit at the image of Alecz throwing a book that had appeared in your head. Alecz smiled lightly at your laugh and leaned on the wall nearby. “Welcome home, by the way.”

“Thank you!” you said, grinning a bit. “It’s…nice to be home again.” Shifting your bag on your shoulder, you looked around the apartment to see if anything had changed since you were last home. Noticing no changes, you turned back to Alecz.

“Nice…arm thing.” Alecz commented, pointing at your sling.

“Oh, my sling?” Lifting your arm up gently, you held it closer to Alecz for them to look at. “The nurse and Dante insisted I wear it cause I was, as they said, ‘troublesome’, so it’s supposed to keep me from moving my arm.”

“…I agree with them.” Alecz said bluntly.

“What? I am not ‘troublesome’!” you rebutted, pouting. Alecz only laughed lightly and removed themselves from the wall.

“Sure you aren’t. Will…you be returning to work tomorrow?” they asked as they turned and made their way to the living room.

“I think I will, depending on if I feel okay in the morning,” you answered, slowly following them to the living space. Alecz made their way to their usual place, slowly picking up a book from the ground as they leant down to sit. “I’m thinking that if I just…knock myself out with something then I’ll sleep long enough and feel well enough to work in the morning.”

“…I don’t think that that is how sleep works.” Alecz commented as they paged through their book slowly.

“I’ll let you know tomorrow if it works or not!” you grinned and turned, making your way to your room. Stepping toward your desk, you slid open the bottom drawer of your desk, and carefully rummaged through the miscellaneous items that were discarded and forgotten about in it.

Pulling out an old pill bottle, you held the base of it in your injured hand and used your good hand to twist the top off. You tapped the bottle onto the lid until 4 pills came out, and you slowly lifted the lid up to your mouth. Leaning your head back, you let the 4 pills fall into the back of your throat, and you swallowed them. Terry had yelled at you about the dangers of dry swallowing pills when you were in the hospital and needed to take an assortment of pills to help your body recover. You couldn’t even remember half of what you had taken during your stay since the names were so complicated, but it seemed like they helped you.

Recapping the bottle and throwing it back in the drawer, you used your foot to close it as you turned around and stepped toward your bed. Refusing to properly remove your shoes, you merely toed them off before you spun around and fell onto your bed.

It wasn’t longer before the sleep pills began to make your eye lids feel heavy, and you felt yourself fight the urge to sleep a bit as anxiety edged its way into your mind at the thought of nightmares. But you succumbed to sleep finally, your eyes closing at some point in the night as the feeling of exhaustion flowed through every part of you.

* * *

“C’mon, I have one arm that still works just fine!”

“Nope! Front desk for you!”

You were hoping to go back to normality today, but your boss was being particularly stubborn about letting you do anything. And so you sat at the front desk and pouted the loudest you could. Your boss was less than amused by your pouting, but he tried to pay no mind to it as he reshelved the bookshelves on the first floor.

Spinning around in the chair, you knew the day was going to be slow, as the middle of the week never brought many new people in. Kids were in school, and the cooler weather meant that there would be less random wanderers walking around, and so the chances of you needing to do much of anything was small.

Setting your feet down on the under-desk crate, your placed your elbow on the table with your cheek against your hand as you sighed loudly. You wanted to tap your hands on the table, wanted to move your feet around, wanted to do SOMETHING, but you worried that you were going to be making too much noise for the few people who were sitting in the library.

Reaching over and grabbing the reservations folder, you flipped it open gently and skimmed over it. There weren’t a lot of reservations for you to go through, and you wanted to groan. Placing your head on the papers, you closed your eyes for a moment and thought.

You had begun your routine again, the normality that you so desperately wanted to break before, and yet your mind wandered over to the case again. Something was bothering you still, a tiny little detail in your mind that you just couldn’t let go. It was probably a detail that you had misheard, or maybe it was just because of how odd the case was, but you needed something to do and so this detail was going to be sanity savior for the week.

“Hey, Boss!” you called out at your boss as you waved at him. “Can you bring the microfilm reader up here for me?” Seeing your boss’ disapproving look, you grinned a bit. “Please?”

You weren’t even sure where to start looking, all you knew was that Lain, whose name made your stomach turn a bit, had been involved in an arson case a few years ago. That’s what Dante had told you, and that was all you had to work with as you started shuffling through the microfilms. You decided it was reasonable to start 3 years ago and just go back from there, also setting the go back limit that you were going to stop at to be 6 years ago.

You didn’t think you’d be sitting in front of the microfilm reader again, one handedly replacing the films as you scanned through the old papers, and yet that’s just what you did for your entire shift. It was tremendously boring, just like the last time you had hauled the microfilm reader out to the front for research, but at least it was something to do. Film after film you loaded up and skimmed the stories they held, and yet there was nothing you found that you were interested in on any of the old papers. There were plenty of stories that you read that unraveled backwards as you worked back in time, stories that you’d see the conclusions to before you saw the beginning, and it was fascinating to see the details that were included in hindsight that would’ve made the story of the case easier to solve. And yet there was a complete absence of stories in all of the papers on arson.

As you locked up the library for the night, a large sigh left you as you threw your keys back into your bag. There was always tomorrow to keep looking, hell, there was every day until next Thursday that you’d have to skim through all the microfilms. You had barely made a dent in the stack of films you wanted to get through, but progress was progress, even if it was just one step at a time.

Walking home had a strange welcomeness to it, the sight of your breath in front of you and the darkened streets a familiar sight as you paced down the sidewalk. The houses and businesses you passed by hadn’t changed since the last time you had walked home, the leaves in front of them still crisp and the frost forming on them still shining as the street light shone over them just like it had done before you were taken.

It was only as you stepped onto the bridge near the city park that something began to feel different. You couldn’t place the feeling exactly, but it was dense, heavy in you as you walked across the bridge. You couldn’t help your feet as they began to move faster, your breath coming out faster and harder as you made your way over the bridge.

Home was only a short distance away, however, and it was only when you were inside, the door closed and both locks set up that you felt like you could relax. Your left arm hurt, and you barely wanted to unclench your hand as you knew it was going to hurt like hell to do. Making your way to the bathroom, you threw your bag and keys into your room before you stepped into the bathroom.

Removing your sling slowly, you tossed it onto the counter before you sat down and began to change your dressing. Your wound was healing well, but it still had a long way to go before it was completely better. It had only been just above 1 week since you had been found, and so it had only been a week since the stitches were put in.

You were told that you would need to go back to the hospital to have Doctor Frostla check up on the progress of how your arm was healing. You were less than thrilled to have to go back to the hospital, and even less thrilled to learn if you would need more surgeries in the future to help your arm. You knew that you would probably need some sort of physical therapy to help you regain function in your hand again, but you were most worried about the feeling in your fingers. You could barely feel anything on your index finger and middle finger, and it was difficult to uncurl them so that they could lay straight. You wondered if you’d ever be able to have normal function in your hand again.

Wrapping up your arm again, you decided against putting it back in the sling. You still brought the sling with you as you made your way back to your room, but you threw it at your bag as you climbed into bed. As you slowly pulled the comforter of your bed, you felt exhaustion hit you, the toll of returning back to work effecting you. It was almost nice to feel your regular exhaustion again, but still the coil of anxiety hit you at the thought of sleep. Pausing before you pulled the comforter over you, you glanced at the drawer.

You couldn’t remember if you had had any dreams the night before, which was definitely better than remembering them, so you as you rose up from your bed, you decided that it would be better to try and keep your dreams minimal if you had any say in the matter.

* * *

Today was your day off, technically, and your boss made it known as you stepped in the library. But you didn’t have anything else to do. Well, you could’ve gone into Devil May Cry, of course, but you felt odd about considering going back to the store only 1 day after you had told Dante you wanted to be at home. You also felt odd considering what had happened outside of your home just 2 days prior, something that made your face burn and made you want to smash your face into any nearby surface that wouldn’t break thinking about it.

Your boss protested your disuse of the sling as you sat on your chair, and you merely rolled your eyes at him as you used only your good hand to load the microfilm reader. Seeing you not using your injured hand seemed to calm his worries, and he left you to attend the front as he returned to reshelf books like he had done the previous day. You knew he wouldn’t be spending the whole day shelving like he had yesterday as there weren’t nearly as many books as there usually was to put back. His snarky comments and quick wit would be back up to the front to bother you soon enough, so you were going to enjoy the quiet in the front until that happened.

Loading up one of the more stubborn rolls of film, you adjusted it under the glass before you leaned back in your chair and began to skim over the paper. It seemed like any other paper on any other day, the main headline being something about the local sports team, and the next story down being a local story about some local guy you didn’t really care about. Turning the roll and letting the paper slide up to the next page, you stopped suddenly.

Zooming in on one part of the second page, you noticed a small story about a local fire case being put on the shelves. It wasn’t a long story at all, but it listed some dates of local fires that had recently occurred. Jotting down the dates, you looked around the front desk area to see if anyone was approaching you before you ran to the archives room.

Grabbing all the microfilm from the written down dates, you jogged back to the microfilm reader at the front and began to swap out the film in the machine for the one whose date was the furthest back in time. Adjusting the film under the glass again, you looked up to the screen and once again began your viewing of the paper.

The front page told you no information about a fire, and it wasn’t until the third page that a fire was even mentioned. It was only in a small story that the fire was mentioned, and you sighed a bit as you pulled out the microfilm to replace it with the next film.

Continuing your loading and skimming thrice more, you groaned a bit at the lack of information that each paper was giving you. The papers would only talk about the places that were set on fire, and if people were hurt in the fire. None of them talked about previous fires nor what kind of investigations were being conducted in regard to the fires.

It was as you were unloading the 5th film that you noticed the dates of each fire. They weren’t terribly close in time, but they were almost consistent in being 1 month and some days apart. Looking at the date of the last fire, it was odd that they stopped so suddenly after what seemed to be a consistent year of fires. Grabbing the microfilm of the last fire mentioned on the string of written down dates, you loaded it up and flipped down the glass.

The front page had the main headline talk about the biggest fire of the previous ones, one that had consumed half of a neighborhood and had killed over 20 people. But you barely noticed the details written on the page as the picture on the front caught your eye. Lain, the murderous liver-stealing demon, was standing on the front page, his face full of tears as he appeared to be talking to a reporter near the fire. The quality of the page wasn’t very clear, but you recognized the man’s face and his tattoo.

Something was wrong, however, something you couldn’t exactly point out within the picture. You felt tight, your breath caught in your chest as you stared at the page, your eyes refusing to move away from it. The coil of dread had filled you quickly when your eyes first saw Lain, and now it was threatening you as you continued to look at the page.

Quickly you turned off the machine, the glass lifting and releasing the film from below it. You were finally able to release your breath as you pushed yourself away from the reader, and you spun yourself away from the machine as you brought your hand up to your chest. Your breaths came out quickly, and you pressed on your chest to try to even them out.

When you had finally collected yourself after a minute, you pulled the microfilm from the machine slowly and set it back in place inside the archives room. You kept the paper full of dates however, and you folded it into the pocket of your bag as you sat yourself back into your seat.

For the rest of the shift, all you did was work on the few reservations that you had. It was boring, but you didn’t want nor have the energy to do anything else.

Shaking your keys out, you inserted the library key and locked the door before you threw them back into your bag. The dense feeling in you appeared again after you had taken a few steps from the library, and you found yourself moving faster than usual as you made your way home once again. You could barely feel your legs as you crossed the bridge, and your lungs were burning as you breathed rapidly. Even as you jogged down the alley and entered your home, your lungs refused to hold the air for very long.

You made sure to check the locks on the door twice before you turned away from the front door, and you didn’t even want to bother changing your dressings as your hands were shaking tremendously as you sat yourself down on your bed. You let your bag fall from your shoulder and to the ground as you slid toward the edge of your bed.

Reaching forward, you opened your drawer and grabbed the pill bottle again. You had taken 4 before, and it seemed to work, but as you tried to pour out the pills into the lid, 6 came out. Accepting that your hand wasn’t going to cooperate with you, you downed the 6 pills, again without water, and twisted on the cap again. You threw the bottle back in the drawer and kicked it closed with your foot, a bit too roughly as it slammed shut.

Throwing yourself back onto your comforter, you closed your eyes and focused only on your breathing as you waited for your body to drag you back into sleep.

* * *

_You were back at work again, back to stocking shelves, back to the normal again. Maybe that would’ve been the most terrifying thing about what was happening if you didn’t know what was coming. But you knew what was going to happen._

_You couldn’t stop yourself from leaving the library, the door slamming shut behind you. It irritated you that you knew you left the door unlocked, but there wasn’t anything you could do about it._

_Your body was moving on its own along the already set path, and although the path was so familiar to you, it was completely wrong. The parked cars weren’t where they normally were, the houses were distorted and broken down, and the street was dark and barely visible under everything._

_You could barely recall walking the entirety of your way home, but you quickly found yourself back in the alley._

_There they were again, the beady eyes that screamed hunger as they stared at you. Something was different about them though, something you couldn’t point out._

_The eyes grew closer to you, and try as you might, your body refused to move as the beginnings of a figure began to appear under the suddenly turn-on alley lights._

_The figure was unfamiliar, not the demon beast you had seen in previous dreams during your sleep, and you already wanted to scream. It wasn’t until the mouth of the beast opened and let out a puff of smoke that you were able to scream though._

_Your body refused to move though, even when the gigantic snake came within reaching distance of you, it’s mouth slowly opening the closer it got._

_The more that you saw of the inside of the demon’s mouth, the louder you screamed, and the faster time seemed to move on._

_Finally, all you could see was the inside of the beast’s mouth, the edges of your sight that could once see the alleyway walls completely were covered with the flesh of the demon covering the entirety of you._

_Darkness slowly consumed you as the beast closed its mouth, and your screams echoed off of the walls around you._

* * *

You weren’t sure how you had even become aware of the loud noise, and you weren’t sure how you had gotten yourself to the front door, but as you stood in front of it with a man standing just outside your apartment, you felt your body feel just as fuzzy as your head did from being pulled out of sleep suddenly.

You didn’t know the man standing outside your apartment, his face familiar but also completely new to you as you stood before him, your right arm holding the door open as he stared you down. The right side of his face was scarred up, and under his hair he seemed to be missing his right ear, something that you tried not to focus on as you wondered who he could be.

You wanted to say something to him, but nothing came out of your mouth as your brain tried to form words. You found it hard to even stand up and hold the door, let alone move your mouth to form complicated sounds. You shuffled your feet a bit, trying to find a better way to stand as you waited for the man to speak.

Your movement seemed to affect the man and he quickly stepped into your space, taking you off guard with your arm quickly pulling free form the door as you stumbled backwards into your home. Your back met with the wall, however, and you let yourself lean against it as the man stepped closer, his arm coming up to push the door completely open before he grabbed at the edge of the door. You watched the man’s arm reel back and slam the door shut hard enough that one of your decorative paintings nearby fell to the floor.

It was as you were staring at the man’s arm that your heart skipped a beat, the coil of dread filling every inch of your body as realization smacked you in the face as you finally knew why the photograph you had seen of the culprit, Lain, looked so wrong.

His tattoo was on the wrong arm.


	13. The Unlucky Number

The strike of fear was back, the same fear that you had felt when you first met Dante, and it cleared up your drugged-up senses the instant you moved, your body flying around the corner and through the living room before you could even process where you were going. You slid onto your knees as you rounded into your room, probably giving yourself rug burn as you came to a stop, but the adrenaline coursing through you didn’t let you feel anything but the need to keep moving as you ripped open your bag.

You grabbed the wooden box inside and scooted your back against the wall behind your desk as you yanked open the top of the box. Were you not in the situation that you were in, you would’ve taken the time to admire the gun for it was unlike any gun you had seen before. It was larger than you were expecting, and as you picked it up, you noticed the lack of bullets in the box. Feeling the grip in your hand, you looked over the entirely of the sides of the gun as you located the safety. On the handle, however, your eyes caught sight of your name carved alone the side near where the thumb safety was.

Assuming it was already loaded and cocked, which now saved you from having to make too much noise, you adjusted your hand around the grip and shakily slid down the safety. You wanted to bring up your other hand to help hold the gun should you actually need to fire it as the recoil was probably going to be strong, but you looked down at your injured arm and decided against it with how useless that hand felt. You didn’t want to use the gun you were holding at all, but the situation unfolding wasn’t going to give you a choice as you heard footsteps walking toward your room. You heart was pounding in your chest, and you felt fear in every corner of your body as the footsteps grew louder and louder.

Sucking in your breath quietly, you waited, your armed hand shaking and your heart pounding loudly in you. The moment you saw movement on the other side of the desk you sat behind, you felt your heartbeat faster, something that you didn’t think it could possibly do in the moment. You hesitated to raise the gun in your hand yet as the person hadn’t seen you yet, or rather, didn’t act like they had seen you yet, and so you merely looked over their whole being.

They walked with a limp you noticed, something that wasn’t obvious before, and you wondered if it would be possible for you to shoot their other leg to allow yourself time to run away. Before you could decide on what to do, however, the person turned around, their burning red eyes catching yours, and all you could see was a fierce anger in them.

Letting your breath go sharply, you raised the gun and fired off, your arm flying back from the recoil as the bullet pierced the person’s shoulder. They didn’t flinch as the bullet flew through them however, and you felt complete dread fill you at the sight. Bringing your arm back down again, you repeated your firing as the person neared you slowly, their leg inhibiting their motion as they moved around your desk.

One of your bullets went through their shoulder again, another went past their neck, but it was when one of your bullets went through their eye that they finally reacted, a loud scream coming from them as their hands went up to their bleeding face. Not thinking twice, you pushed yourself off the wall and used the force you had pushed yourself up with to push the person down to the floor. You only flinched for a second as you felt pain surge through your injured arm, but the adrenaline quickly masked it as you turned yourself around and fled from the room as the person landed hard on the floor.

“I’ll kill you!” you heard from behind you as you neared the living room again. “I’ll eat your heart out and burn you alive!!” Sliding around the corner of the room, you about screamed at the sight of another person near the front, quickly realizing that it was Alecz and not a new person. They were holding the phone in their hand, their face pale and shocked as you ran over to them.

“What are you doing?” you called out to them as you hooked your arm with their arm, their eyes meeting yours for a second before they looked to the area behind you. “We need to go, now!!”

“I’m calling Dante, I heard the door slam shut and I sme—” they tried to explain to you before a rush of smoke filled the air, causing you to release Alecz’s arm as you tried to cover your eyes and mouth. You weren’t able to see Alecz anymore and could only hear them as they coughed, a couple of loud plastic thuds accompanying their cough behind the smog, and you lifted your shirt over your nose and mouth as you tried to catch your breath.

The footsteps began again, this time heavier than before as they made their way toward you once again. Thinking you had more time, you tried to aim your gun toward the sound of footsteps, unsure of where the man could be among all the smoke. You couldn’t see anything more than a few inches away from you, and so you tried to listen for a footstep before you fired a shot. You heard the bullet collide with a solid surface, and you cursed loudly as you tried to aim again.

“Brace yourself!” you heard suddenly to your side. Looking over quickly to where you had last seen Alecz, you felt confused by their sudden command but complied and lowered your gun as you leaned against the wall.

A sudden gust of wind overtook you, causing you to block your face with your hand as the smoke around you began to clear from the space. Finding it hard to breath, you sucked in the deepest breath you could as you waited for the smoke to clear from the wind. Only after a few seconds did the area become visible again, the intruder mimicking your actions of covering his bleeding face as the wind blew through. The air disturbance finally ceased, and you quickly turned to where Alecz was once standing, finding not them there any longer but a demon you had never seen before instead.

The demon was tall, their skin dark purple and rough with scales that covered every part of them except their face, legs, and chest. Where there were no scales on their legs and chest, there was white fur instead, and on their face was what appeared to be soft, white skin that extended up into the demon’s horns that protruded out behind them. Around their eyes was a black band of colour that had only a small strip of colour that rode up into the creature’s hair, and it was when you met eyes with the creature that you knew you had nothing to fear.

You quickly turned away from Alecz and back to the intruder, your arm raising to aim your gun at them again. Behind the man you noticed the place where your previous bullet had hit, and you made sure to aim directly at the intruder’s head as he lowered his blood splattered arms down to his sides. On the ends of his arms were black charred hands, with the tips of his fingers slowly expelling smoke from under his fingernails. You couldn’t help but cringe a bit at the sight before you moved your eyes back up to the demonic man.

“W-What do you want!?” You exclaimed with a lowered voice as to hide the fear you felt inside, despite the fact that the man could see you shaking wildly as you pointed your gun at him. You wished you had a way to will your body still as you feared that the man wouldn’t take you seriously if he knew how afraid you were.

“I’m here to kill you!!” the man screamed, flames coming out of different parts of his body with his voice. “You killed my brothers, and now I’ll kill you!!” Feeling your face furrow a bit, you knew exactly what the man was talking about, who he was talking about. You shook your head though, not wanting to acknowledge the reason for why the intruder was here. You had wanted desperately to forget all that had happened in the last month, and even more desperately to forget the events that had occurred 6 months prior, but the man in front of you was a reminder of all the horror you had seen happen in front of you.

“You need to leave!!” You screamed out. Glancing to the side, you could see that Alecz was giving you an odd expression, one where you could tell they were terribly confused on top of scared of what was happening, but you only turned your eyes back to the man. “I-I understand what you’re feeling!” you exclaimed at the man. Watching as the man took a step forward, you gulped, and quickly shot a bullet at his feet, missing by a large margin. The intruder hopped back from the shot and raised his eyes from the bullet hole on the floor to you as to glare at you. “But you don’t have to do this!”

“Yes! I do!!” the man yelled, his feet leaving the ground suddenly. Flinching at the movement, the man was in front of you before you had time to fully process that he had moved, his flesh blurring in front of your eyes as he reached for you. Before you could even react, a blur of purple appeared before your eyes over the man, and in the blink of an eye, Alecz had moved the man and themselves to the wall to the left of where you stood and had pinned the intruder to the surface.

Turning quickly, you pointed your gun at the man, but as your arm shook uncontrollably, you pulled your finger off of the trigger. You didn’t want to risk shooting Alecz, but you wanted to be ready to shoot the man if he were to overpower Alecz. You watched as Alecz and the man struggled against each other, the man trying to free himself from Alecz’s grasp as Alecz continued to try to push him back into the wall. You were startled at how strong the intruder was as he was still only in his human form and you worried how strong he would be if he was given the chance to transform like Alecz.

“Get out of here!” Alecz yelled at you suddenly, pulling you from your mind. Shaking your head out, you kept your gun aimed at the two while they continued to fight. “Go get help!!” flinching a bit, you hesitated for a moment before you pulled down your gun and looked at the door.

“I-I’ll be back soon!” you yelled toward Alecz as you turned yourself on your heel and began to move. You only made it a few steps, however, before you heard a feral scream, one that caused all the hair to raise on your body. You quickly turned around again, only to be met with the image of a purple blur moving toward you. All you could do was raise your arm up across your chest before Alecz collided with you, the force of their body sending you back into the wall.

You tried not to cry out at the pain that surged through you as you slid down the wall, the weight of Alecz pulling you down, but as a strangled noise left your throat, you heard a maniacal laugh coming from the man. You raised your eyes to glare at him, his gaze already on you, and you attempted to pull your hand up to aim your gun at him. Finding your arm trapped under a shaking Alecz, you looked down again and tried to raise yourself from the ground with your legs in an attempt to get Alecz off of you. They only continued to shake as they tried to remove themselves from you, and you found their weight too much for you to move off of you.

“A-Alecz! C’mon, I need you to move!” you stuttered out at Alecz, their head slowly lifting up. Seeing their face finally, you gasped a bit as you noticed a large wound on their forehead, one that was bleeding profusely. “Y-You’re bleeding!” you said as you tried again to help Alecz off.

“Enough of this!” you heard the intruder say suddenly. Returning your gaze to him, your eyes went wide at the sight of smoke pouring out of the man, his face no longer crazed as he laughed but instead furious as he stood opposite to where you were. Feeling a surge of fear, you again encouraged Alecz to move, your voice sharper and more full of panic than before.

Their arms shook as they tried to push off of the ground to stand back up, blood dripping down their face and off their nose to the ground below them. The puddle was growing quickly below you, and you knew that if this was happening during most any other situation that you’d hastily remove yourself from the blood. Not wanting to accidently harm Alecz and aggravate their open wound, you only lifted your arm under them to help them raise up.

Before Alecz fully rose up, they turned their face to glare at the man, but as their eyes met with the sight of the increasing amount of smoke pouring from every place on the man, their eyes widened. Their one hand quickly left the ground and landed on your shoulder roughly, pushing you back into the wall. You groaned at the force of movement and tried to raise your arm up to protest Alecz’s movement.

It was only a moment later, just after Alecz had turned to face you with their eyes wide and cheeks splattered with their blood, that the area around you was completely and blindingly white. Your eyes quickly slammed shut at the overpowering light, and you felt an impossible heat surround you immediately after the light appeared. The pressure of the air made it impossible for you to feel anything on your body, and if you weren’t already aware of Alecz’s hand on you, you wouldn’t know if they were still in front of you or not.

The light faded quickly, you saw from behind your eye lids, but the intense heat remained around you for longer. As a few seconds passed, you began to see light flickering around you, and so you opened your eyes, and gasped a bit at the sight of fire surrounding you. There was nothing left untouched by the fire around you as the furniture, paintings, and décor were all lit up, the smoke from them quickly pooling on the ceiling above you. The walls were charred from the flames, and you noticed that the scorch marks were originating from the area opposite to where you sat.

Feeling a shift on you, you turned your head quickly and were met with the sight of Alecz, their body draped over yours. You called out to them, a rough cough coming out of you just after, as you tried to shake them a bit. They didn’t move however, and you felt the panic levels in your rise.

They weren’t moving at all as you tried to lift them off and tried again to call out to them. Even if they were able to speak to you, you worried you’d be unable to hear them as the fires around you grew rapidly. Looking up from Alecz, you looked toward where the man once stood, his body barely visible behind the increasing smoke and flames in front of you. He wasn’t moving, from what you could see, and you wondered if he still had smoke pouring out from his body.

Shuffling yourself a bit, you finally freed your hand from under Alecz and raised it to grab under their arm. Feeling a warmth begin to slide down your arm as soon as you touched them, you clenched your teeth. You were unsure of where your gun had gone, and you were unsure of what was going to happen next, but you knew one thing: you needed to move and fast.

“I need you to untrigger!” you screamed out suddenly, your hand grabbing Alecz under their armpit as you pushed back against the wall with your legs. Alecz barely flinched as you yelled, but they listened, their body returning back to its human form, and you only felt your teeth clench tighter at sight of blood still rushing down Alecz in human form.

You pushed your legs forward to give yourself leverage as you pushed your back against the wall, Alecz’s body still draped against yours as you rose slowly. Your legs tried to slide forward on the floor as you rose up, but you refused to give up and kept quickly placing them back on the floor as you used your hand to keep Alecz from falling off of you to the side. Every part of your body was screaming, and you knew that you shouldn’t be able to move, shouldn’t be able to even lift Alecz as you finally rose to standing, but the adrenaline in you kept you moving as you lifted yourself and Alecz from the wall.

You began to move toward the stairs nearby, Alecz’s feet dragging as you pulled them with you. The stairs weren’t very far away from you, but they weren’t affected by the fire around you as there was a wall between them that had protected them. Although separated, the smoke from the widespread fire still rose through the stairway toward the upstairs ceiling. Stepping up the first step with a loud thud, your legs burned in pain from the extra burden on them, but you willed them on, wanting to get yourself to a place where the intruder couldn’t get to. Step after step up was torture on your legs and arm as you hauled Alecz upstairs, but you were hopeful that the man’s limp would cause some separation between him and yourself.

Finally reaching the top of the steps, you felt your vision begin to spot around you, threatening to encase all that you saw as you tried to look down the hall. You shook your head in an attempt to clear your sight as you moved yourself toward the bedroom nearby. The smoke had already made its way upstairs, and you found it hard to breath as you moved through it, but you kept moving accidently bumping into the corner of the hall as you tried to round the corner.

Alecz began to move a bit as you pulled them into their own room, and you found yourself softly cooing them as you dragged them through the room. You felt a hand clench on your back softly, and you couldn’t help but flinch and tense up at the sudden touch, but as you felt Alecz raise themselves slowly to their feet, you relaxed.

“B-Balcony…” they said weakly. Turning your eyes from the closet near you to the nearby doors to the balcony, you slowly shifted Alecz so they could hold to you beter before stepping toward the doors. Stopping just before them, you leant yourself against the wall for a second, and pulled Alecz up higher on your body by their arm.

“Hold on to me!” you commanded. Feeling Alecz clench on your shirt tighter, you let go of their body and quickly grabbed onto the balcony door. Using your body weight to open the door, you threw it open, quickly letting go of the door to return your hand to under Alecz as you stepped forward to stop yourself from falling. Smoke in the room rushed out through the door, and you found yourself coughing harshly as the sudden change in the air.

You took a shaky step forward onto the balcony, your legs still screaming at the excess weight on you, and just as you were able to fully pull Alecz outside with another step, you felt another hand grasp on your shirt tightly. You tried to shake off the hand quickly as you stepped forward onto the balcony, but you were overpowered and pulled backwards, your hand letting go of Alecz onto the balcony as you found yourself back inside.

You screamed out at the sudden movement being forced on you as you threw your bent arm back behind you and you felt your elbow collide with the intruder, only for it to be grabbed a moment later and twisted behind you, causing you to yell out again. The man continued to pull you inside, your struggle barely hindering him as you were brought farther into the room. You tried desperately to pull your arm free, the man only tightening his hold on you as you tried to free yourself.

Before you, you saw Alecz struggling to lift themselves off of the ground, their arms shaking as they lifted themselves up, and you tried to reach your foot forward to grab at the door to the balcony, missing by only a few inches as you were harshly yanked backwards. Lifting your head up from where Alecz was struggling, you felt your heart skip a beat at the sight of a red blur behind them. In the blink of an eye the blur was in front of you, with his eyes matching his coat as his hand flew past your face and into the face of the man behind you. Feeling the intruder release you at the collision of a hand into his still bleeding face, you threw yourself away from him and you used your foot to push off of his body and toward Alecz.

You turned yourself around quickly to see Dante lift up the man by his face before you felt Alecz grasp onto your ankle suddenly and you jumped a bit. Reaching down to your roommate, you lifted them to their feet, allowing them to lean on you as they rose up.

“Go! Run!!” Dante shouted suddenly, your eyes lifting from Alecz to him quickly. He was looking back at you, his eyes the brightest red and the most angry you had ever seen them, and you watched as he struggled to maintain a hold on the man in his hands.

“Downstairs is on fire!” you yelled out to him. Seeing his face furrow more, he turned back to the man in front of him, and he raised the intruder up in the air a little bit. Feeling a tug on your arm, you turned and looked at Alecz, their eyes also now a deep red as they stared at Dante.

Hearing a strained yell, you turned and watched as Dante threw the intruder into the wall opposite to him, the man’s body going through the wall at the force. Dante turned his head around as the man disappeared behind the now collapsing wall, his eyes meeting Alecz’s for a moment. The two seemed locked onto each other for a second, and you turned your gaze between them quickly.

Neither of the two said anything for the few seconds that they were looking at each other, but their gazes said everything they wanted to say out loud. Feeling another tug on your arm, you looked at Alecz, their head turning toward you and meeting your eyes.

“Hold on tight,” they said as they raised their other arm up to grab onto you. Confused, you reached higher up and held onto their shoulder as they activated their Devil Trigger. Looking back at Dante with confusion full on your face, you felt yourself be pulled toward the edge of the balcony. Stumbling back a few steps, your back hit the edge of the railing and you gasped a bit as you felt yourself continue to be pulled. Finally understanding what was happening, you pulled your arm away from Alecz and reached it out toward Dante.

“Wait, no! Dante!!” you called out to the man as you felt Alecz’s wings spread out and move the air around you. Dante only looked at you for a second, his hand twitching as he caught sight of your hand before he turned back to the collapsed wall on the other side of the room. You saw a glimpse of the intruder removing himself from the debris for only a second before you were pulled over the edge of the balcony, the sight of Dante activating his Devil Trigger the last thing you saw before only the sky was above you completely.

You felt yourself scream out at the sudden motion of falling, your arms coming up to grab onto Alec’s shoulders as they held onto you. For only a few moments was your body in freefall, but as you neared the ground, Alec’s wings spread out, the two of you spinning around in the air which caused your stomach to turn as your fall began to slow down suddenly.

Just before you landed on the ground, Alecz raised their wings up and tried to shift their feet below them, but you heard them grunt at the motion just before the two of you smacked into the ground. Alecz quickly released you as you both collided with the ground, and you rolled away from them as they released you. You were able to tuck your injured arm in just before you began to roll, but you still felt pain surge through to your fingers tips until you stopped rolling.

Rolling over quickly so your chest was flat with the ground, you pushed yourself off of the ground and ran over to Alecz as they remained laying on the ground. You called out their name as you slid to kneeling next to them, their body returning to their human form just after you placed your hand on their shoulder. Seeing the blood pooling below their face, you quickly pulled the bottom of your shirt up to your mouth, bit down on it and ripped off a long strip of it.

“Hey, I need to move you!” you said at Alecz. Hearing a small murmur of acknowledgement, you gently lifted their head up and placed the strip of cloth in your mouth before you reached over and grabbed their arm. Standing up for a second, you heaved their body over gently, and as they laid on their back, you pulled the cloth up to their wound and pressed down firmly. “It’s gonna be fine!” you found yourself saying at them as you watched over their face.

Seeing a tear appear suddenly on Alecz’s cheek, you shook your head quickly before looking back at them. But another tear appeared, and after that another did, one after another they fell off of your cheeks. Removing your eyes from Alecz, you looked up at your apartment, or what was left of it. The bottom floor was completely engulfed in flames, the windows all shattered as heat from the inside escaped through them. You could see people in the distance who looked vaguely familiar, and as you looked to them, you could hear the faint sound of an alarm screeching from within the building. You felt yourself shudder at the sight of the building, your tears falling faster the longer you looked at the building. You weren’t sure if you were crying because you were watching your home burning while one of your friends was bleeding out under your hand, or if the emotions you had pushed down earlier in favor of an adrenaline rush were finally showing up again, but all you could do was let your tears fall as you kept your hand firmly pressed against Alecz’s head.

“Hey! Are you okay!?” a voice called out from behind you suddenly. Breaking your gaze from the fires, you turned your head around to behind you to see Morrison running over toward you, a briefcase in one hand and his other holding his hat onto his head. You felt relief hit you at the sight of the man, and you called out to the man as he got closer. “Dante called me and told me to get here as fast as I could!” the man said as he knelt down next to Alecz, his briefcase falling to his side.

“T-There was a demon! A-And I—” you started to say as you watched Morrison open his case, an assortment of papers and other professional things inside.

“You can tell me later; I need you to press this onto your friends head!” Morrison instructed as he handed you an ascot tie from his case. Throwing the shred of your shirt to the side, you grabbed the cloth from the man quickly and replaced it over Alecz’s wound, earning a groan from them. “If I had known what was happening, I would’ve brought a first aid kit!”

“I-I’m just glad you’re here now,” you said at Morrison as you firmly pressed the ascot over Alecz’s head. Hearing a sudden crash from the apartments, you and Morrison quickly turned to look at the source, your eyes both being met with a large blob of charred flesh protruding from the side of the building. Feeling your mouth hang open a bit, you shifted on your knees and stared at the flesh.

Only a moment after you had first seen the blob, it began to fly through the air, its body going over you, Morrison, and Alecz toward the river that was nearby. You stared in awe at the creature flying above head, but you quickly felt your face furrow as its face became visible the closer it got to the ground. As it slammed into the ground, everything began to shake from the shockwave of its weight hitting the ground and you tried your best to keep Alecz from moving too much at the shaking. Just after the beast landed and began to roll over, a red blur appeared before it, the figure standing between you and the snake demon.

“And here I thought I that your brother was the ugliest thing I had seen before!” you heard Dante yell at the creature as he lifted his sword over his shoulder. You felt your heart pound in your ears at the sight of Dante standing before the snake creature, and you felt your hands shake as you struggled to keep it over Alecz’s head. The strike of fear that you had once felt at the riverside 6 months prior was back, and your vision began to get blurry as you continued to stare at Dante standing before the demon. You tried to pull yourself back from looking at the man, but you found yourself unable to as your body felt like it was back in the moment with the original snake, the fear, adrenaline, and exhaustion flowing through every part of you.

“Hey, you don’t look good,” you heard Morrison say at you just before you felt his hand over yours. Snapping out of your gaze at Dante, you turned and looked at Morrison, his face full of worry.

“I-I’m fine…” you muttered at him as you turned back to Dante, who had taken off from his spot and was heading toward the snake. The demon had flames pouring out of its body as it scrunched up on itself, waiting for Dante to draw near. You couldn’t take your eyes off of the creature as it and Dante began to fight, your heart racing and your body full of fear as the creature moved around Dante.

“Let me take this,” Morrison said quietly, his one hand lifting yours up as he took hold of the cloth over Alecz.

“D-Do you have a gun, Morrison?” you asked suddenly, and as you watched a confused look take over the man’s face, you turned back to the fight between Dante and the demon.

“Why in the would do you need a gun right now?” the man asked.

“I-In case that demon comes this way, I-I’d feel better with one ready to shoot…” you admitted. Hearing some shuffling near you, you turned your head and were met with the sight of Morrison pulling a gun from his belt hesitantly.

“Here,” the man said as he pressed down the safety, “Press your hand back here,” the man said as he shifted himself to face the battle nearby. Listening, you replaced Morrison’s hand over Alecz’s wound, and pressed down firmly. You still were shaking wildly, and you couldn’t take your eyes off of Dante and the snake. You heard a small sigh and looked to your side to see Morrison giving you a soft look. Gulping lightly, you returned your eyes back to Dante once again.

The transformed man and demon fought for what felt like an eternity, Dante’s sword piercing through the beast and the beast trying to pin the man under itself. You could only watch anxiously as parts of the snake were slowly sliced off of the beast and thrown to the side as Dante worked to take the beast down.

Finally, once the area had been covered in demon blood and all of the grass around where the demon had been was burnt up completely, Dante lurched forward, his sword piercing through the cut-up face of the snake. The demon screamed out a scream that made every part of your body shudder, and it retracted from the blade inside it. Before it could remove itself from the impalement, however, Dante lurched forward again and forced the beast backwards into the river. The creature let out another scream as the water encapsulated its body, steam pouring out around it as the water it was in began to boil.

Dante held the creature in the water as it struggled to pull itself free. Unable to go forward, the demon went backwards into the water, more of its body being submerged in water and creating more steam the rose up from it.

Finally, the creature stopped, no more screaming coming out of it, but Dante still remained standing in front of the body with his sword still placed into it’s face.

A minute passed where no one moved, you and Morrison only watching as Dante stood in place with his sword lunged forward in the body of the beast. When he finally moved, however, you felt yourself released a breath that you didn’t know you had held inside you, and you let go of the clothe that was in your hand as Dante removed his sword from the beat.

“Dante!!” you yelled out as you stood up slowly. Feeling a tinge of pain in your shoulder, you lifted your hand up and grabbed onto it as you stumbled forward toward the man. Dante jumped as he heard his name, his head flying around to look at you as he returned his sword to his back. Upon seeing you, he deactivated his Devil Trigger, and you could see a soft expression cross his face as he began to run toward you.

You couldn’t help but let the tears in your eyes begin to fall again, clouding your sight completely as you continued to move toward Dante. When the blur of red came closer to you, you reached your hand out to the man, and quickly he grabbed onto it and pulled himself closer to you, his other arm encircling you in an impossibly tight hug.

All you could do was bury your face into the man’s shoulder as his hand held onto yours between you and him, his other arm grabbing onto your body like the man never wanted to let go. You felt the man’s chin rest on the top of your head as you pushed your face into shoulder and when you gripped his hand tightly, you felt his grip it back just as hard, and you never wanted to let go of him.

You could hear the building still burning in the area behind you, and the sound of paramedics and firefighters soon began to wail as they got closer to the scene. There was still a faint bubbling of water and hissing of steam as the body of the demon slowly began to deflate into the river, but you refused to look at it. You instead turned your head slightly to see Alecz and Morrison in the edges of your vision as you stood in Dante’s arms.

You hadn’t felt yourself suck in a deep breath, but at the press of Dante’s hand to the middle of your back, you exhaled a shaky breath as you turned back to the man and returned your face into his shoulder. Moving from your mid-back to your upper back, Dante’s hand gripped onto you again, and although you could hear all the chaos still going on behind you, you wanted nothing more than to stop time and avoid the uncertain future that you knew was going to be unraveling before you in a short time. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm bad at chapter titles, I know. Now lets see if I can power write the next chapter in a week cause I haven't even started it yet lmao


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